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Class. ScTAr?/ 

Book O 9_ 

CoffyiightN" 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



OH, TO BE RICH AND YOUNG ! 



OH, TO BE RICH AND YOUNG! 



BY 



JABEZ T. SUNDERLAND 

Author of "The Spark in the Clod,'* "The 
Origin and Character of the Bible," etc. 




BOSTON: AMERICAN UNITARIAN 
ASSOCIATION: MDCCCCX 



->^ 






Copyright, 1910 

AMERICAN UNITAHIAN ASSOCIATION 



C'Cf.A278407 



IT S)e2)f CBtTB 

these pages to m^ 

1ft seems fitting tbat tbes 
sboulD be associated witb bet 
name, because bet lite was so 
rate an& noble an embodiment 
ot tbe tDeals wbicb tbe^ tcs 
to eipress, 

00 tortb, little booft, an& carrig 
to wbom ^ou ma^, ttutbs tbat 
were Dear to ber, anD tbat sbe 
60 splenDiDl^ liveD* 



" In the nine heavens are eight Paradises : 

Where is the ninth one? In the human 
breast. 
Only the blessed dwell in Paradises ; 

But blessedness dwells in the human breast. 
Created creatures are in the Paradises; 
The uncreated Maker in the breast. 
Rather, O man ! want those eight Paradises 
Than be without the ninth one in thy 
breast. 
Given to thee are those eight Paradises 
When thou, the ninth one hast within thy 
breast." 

FROM THE ARABIC 

Translated hy W, R, Alger. 



CONTENTS 



I 
WEALTH WHICH ALL MAY WIN 



GREAT WEALTH FOR ALL 

TWO KINDS OF WEALTH 

LEGAL POSSESSIONS 

POETS AS TEACHERS 

•* A STAKE IN EVERY STAR" 

" HEIRS OF THE AGES" 

TWO KINDS OF OWNERSHIP 

LIMITATIONS OF LEGAL OWNERSHIP 

SELFISHNESS OF LEGAL OWNERSHIP 

EMERSON'S FARM 

WHICH WAS THE OWNER? 

THOREAU AND WORDSWORTH 

" A MADMAN'S WI LL " 

WEALTH AND HAPPINESS 

WHAT IS WEALTH ? 

HOW RICH THEY ARE! 

CONTRASTS .... 

SUPERIORITY TO CIRCUMSTANCES 

A MAN'S " WORTH " 

HOW TO ACQUIRE WEALTH 

" ALL THINGS YOURS" 



Page 

1 

1 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

10 

12 

13 

14 

16 

19 

20 

21 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 



II 
BEAUTY WHICH ALL MAY ATTAIN 

A WORLD OF BEAUTY 33 

HUMAN BEAUTY 34 

EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL BEAUTY ... 36 

PHYSICAL BEAUTY 39 

DR. SARGENT ON BEAUTY ..... 40 

INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY 42 

RUSKIN ON BEAUTY 43 



MORAL BEAUTY . . . . 

WRINKLES 

FRANCES WILLARD 

HOW THE MIND CARVES THE FACE 

LINCOLN 

PAIN AND SORROW AS SCULPTORS 
RELIGION AS A BEAUTIFIER 
A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE SOUL 



Page 
44 
46 
47 
48 
49 
51 
54 
55 



III 
PERPETUAL YOUTH FOR ALL 

THE DREAM OF PERPETUAL YOUTH ... 59 

LIFE'S VARYING CHARMS 60 

THE BEAUTY WHICH POETS SING ... 61 

THE APPROACH OF AGE 62 

WHITCOMB RILEY .63 

ADVANTAGES OF OLD AGE 64 

LIFE GROWING RICHER 66 

AGE NOT A THING OF YEARS . , . . 6T 

WHO ARE OLD ? .68 

MARKS OF AGE 69 

ACHIEVEMENTS OF OLD AGE .... 71 

GLADSTONE AT EIGHTY-SEVEN . . . . 72 

HUGO AT EIGHTY-THREE 74 

DR. HALE AT EIGHTY-FIVE 75 

ACHIEVEMENTS OF WOMEN . . . . • 77 

MRS. HOWE 78 

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF AGE 79 

INCREASING LENGTH OF HUMAN LIFE ... 80 

HAPPINESS IN OLD AGE 81 

FREEMAN CLARKE AND ROBERT COLLYER . . 83 

PRESIDENT DWIGHT 85 

WHITTIER. HOLMES AND EMERSON ... 86 

SOWING AND REAPING 87 

AN ANCIENT UNPANISHAD 88 

DR. AMES ON OLD AGE 89 

MAJOR PENDENNIS AND THE HUMBOLDTS . . 90 

A COMPLETED LIFE 91 











Page 


LIFE LIKE A RIVER 92 


HOW TO AVOID GROWING OLD IN SPIRIT 


63 


RECREATION 


94 


GARDENING 








94 


GOLF 








96 


TRAVEL 








97 


NEW INTERESTS . 








98 


BE UNSELFISH 








98 


BELIEVE IN THE FUTURE 








99 


LOVE CHILDREN . 








. 100 


BELIEVE THAT YOUR LIFE IS DIVINE 




. 101 


BELIEVE IN ETERNAL LOVE 








. 102 



I 

WEALTH WHICH ALL MAY WIN 



" The true veins of wealth are purple, and 
not in Rock, but in Flesh." 

JOHN RUSKIN. 

" I have a stake in every star, 

In every beam that fills the day ; 
All hearts of men my coffers are. 
My ores arterial tides convey; 
The fields, the skies. 
The sweet replies 
Of thought to thought, are my gold-dust." 

DAVID A. WASSON. 

"There are those who make themselves rich, 
yet have nothing; there are those who make 
themselves poor, yet have great riches." 

PEOVEEBS 13 : 7. 



WEALTH WHICH ALL MAY WIN 

In a world so rich in its resources as ours, it <3reat 
is unendurable to think of man's lot as one of Wealtb 
permanent poverty. The products of the earth, ^^^ ^^^ 
actual or possible, are abundant to supply the 
need of every human being, and banish want 
and physical suffering from the world. The 
fact that any human beings are hungry or cold, 
or destitute of material necessities and comforts 
of life, is a reproach to our civilization and our 
Christianity. Long ere this all poverty — all 
poverty which produces suffering — ought to 
have been banished from civilized lands. 

Every friend of humanity, therefore, should 
be deeply in sympathy with all efforts looking 
to a better adjustment of economic conditions, 
a more equitable distribution of the products of 
labor, and the creation of conditions such as to 
insure that, to a greater extent than we now see, 
the wealth of the world shall be controlled by 
those who create it, and employed for the bene- 
fit of those who need it. 

And yet, the problems of the right distribu- ITWO f:fnD0 
tion of material wealth, and of the abolition of ^^ "QWcaltb 
physical poverty, are not the only ones, or even 
the greatest, that are before our age. Man is 
not a body merely; he is a living soul. Soul 
poverty is as real as bodily poverty, and even 
more serious in its results; and soul wealth is 

[1] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

even more important than any possible wealth 
consisting in material things. Is not our whole 
generation forgetting this to an alarming de- 
gree ? 

Do not so-called rich men need to learn, more 
than they need to learn anything else whatever, 
that true riches are of the mind and heart, and 
not of the purse or bank account; and that if 
they are without these internal possessions, in 
the sight of God and all right thinking persons 
they are bankrupts and paupers? 

And do not so-called poor men need above 
everything else to know that realest poverty 
and realest wealth are internal, not external; 
that while efforts to improve their material con- 
ditions are legitimate and imperative, yet in 
spite of material conditions, in spite of any 
hardships that external poverty can inflict, and 
in the face of all existing injustices of indus- 
trial and social conditions, they may if they will 
be possessors of very real and very great riches, 
— and riches that nobody can take away from 
them ? 

It is as true now as it was in the days of 
Solomon: "There are those who make them- 
selves rich, yet have nothing; there are those 
who make themselves poor, yet have great 
riches." 

Is real wealth identical with legal possessions ? 
Is it obtained through, and only through, law 

[2] 



WEALTH FOR ALL 

courts and law papers? Or is there wealth, Itegal 
vast, real, splendid, and more to be prized than IPosseaea 
any other wealth known to men, of which the ^^"^ 
law takes no cognizance, and which all the legal 
processes in the world are powerless either to 
give us or to take away from us? 

The truth is, we are all the while calling a 
thousand things ours which we do not own in 
any legal way. Yet they are among our truest 
possessions. 

For example, I say "my friend." What do 
I mean by that "my"? I do not have any legal 
ownership of that friend, and yet I know that 
I have a right in some true and real sense to call 
him mine. And my possession in him is very 
precious. 

I say "my wife," "my child." But I do 
not own these in any such way as I own prop- 
erty. I am not at liberty to sell them, or de- 
stroy them. Yet in a sense far more deep and 
real than that of mere legal possession they are 
mine. 

I say "my country," and if I have any pa- 
triotism in my soul the words thrill me. I feel 
that the country in which I have always lived, 
and which I have always loved, is mine in a 
sense very deep and very sacred, even though 
I may not have legal ownership of a single rod 
of its surface. If you want to know what it 
means to say " my country " — ^what possessions 

[3] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

you have, deeper and more inalienable than 
legal titles, in her every valley and hill, nay in 
everything that pertains to her — go and travel 
in a foreign land. Then you shall understand. 
Or, if still you do not know, then read Edward 
Everett Hale's little book written at the time 
of our civil war, " A Man Without a Country," 
and see how unutterably poor is a man who, 
amidst all the lands of the earth, can say of 
none, " It is mine." 
Poet0 as With reference to this matter of wealth 

tlCBChCxe other than that of a legal kind, perhaps our 
best teachers are our poets. Their eyes, better 
than most, are able to penetrate down below 
appearances to realities, and to see that man's 
life is more than meat and drink. 

We all have, or may have if we will, large 
and rich possessions in the world of nature 
around us ; and possessions there capable of un- 
limited expansion. Writes Lucy Larcom: 

" I do not own an inch of land, 
But all I see is mine, — 
The orchard and the mowing-field, 
The lawns and gardens fine." 

Writes Charles Mackay: 

" Rich am I, if, when I pass 
Mid the daisies in the grass. 
Every daisy in my sight 

[4] 



WEALTH FOR ALL 

Seems a jewel of delight; 

Rich am I, if I can see 

Treasure in the flower and tree. 

And can hear 'mid forest leaves 

Music in the summer eves ; 

If the lark, that sings aloud 

On the fringes of the cloud, 

Scatters melodies around 

Fresh as rain drops on the ground; 

If the tides upon the shore 

Chant me anthems ever more, 

And I feel in every mood 

That life is fair and God is good ! 

I am rich if I possess 

Such a fund of happiness !" 

Sings David A. Wasson: 

'' I have a stake in every star, ** S StaTtC 

In every beam that fills the day; S.?^f^^ 

All hearts of men my coffers are. 
My ores arterial tides convey; 
The fields, the skies. 
The sweet replies 
Of thought to thought, are my gold-dust ; 
The oaks, the brooks, 
And speaking looks 
Of lovers, faith and friendship's trust. 
Talk not of store. 
Millions or more, — 
Of values which the purse may hold, — 

[5] 



Stat 



RICH AND YOUNG 

But this divine: 
I own the mine 
Whose grains outweigh a planet's gold." 

Here are some lines written by John W. 
Chadwick, telling us of the wonderful wealth 
that is waiting to be ours in the world of the 
beautiful : 

*' This is the law of beauty. 

That, if we but serve her well, 
All things are ours henceforward, 
In earth and heaven and hell. 

All things of the brown old planet, 

All of the deep blue sky, 
All that the ear can hearken, 

All that can fill the eye. 

And if we are rich with their riches, 
The world may give or withhold; 

For He who is God of beauty 
Her secret to us has told." 

** Mcite ot In still another direction is vast and very pre- 

tbe Bgea" cious wealth offered us. I mean from the 

thought and achievements of the great past. 

Again let a poet, Julia R. Dorr, tell the story: 

'' Heir of all the ages, I, — 

Heir of all that they have wrought; 
All their store of emprise high. 

All their wealth of precious thought; 

[61 



WEALTH FOR ALL 

Heir of all that they have earned 

By their passion and their tears ; 
Heir of all that they have learned 

Through the weary toiling years; 
Heir of all the faith sublime 

On whose wings they soared to heaven; 
Heir of every hope that Time 

To earth's fainting sons hath given; 
Aspirations pure and high; 

Strength to do and to endure: 
Heir of all the ages, I, — 

Lo! I am no longer poor!"' 

Are all these words only idle utterances of 
disordered minds? or do they speak to us of the 
deepest of all realities? 

Says Ruskin: "A man's hand may be full 
of invisible gold, and the wave of it or the grasp 
shall do more than another's with a shower of 
bullion. This invisible gold does not necessa- 
rily diminish in the spending. Political econo- 
mists will do well some day to take heed of it, 
though they cannot take measure." 

A little careful thought shows us that owner- tTwo ItltldS 
ship in this world is of two kinds, namely, legal ^^ ©Wlter* 
ownership, and ownership which we get by 
knowledge, love and appreciation; and that the 
ownership conferred by law papers is the lower 
of the two. 

This does not mean, however, that legal pos- 

[7] 



RICH AND YOUNG 



Xfmlta* 
tions of 
Xesal 
©wnetsbip 



session is to be despised or that it is not im- 
portant. In its place it is very important. The 
experience of the race shows that the right of 
property-possession, guarded and protected by 
legal forms, is an essential to civilization. 
Where that right is best guarded — most equita- 
bly guarded in the interest of all — society rises 
to its best; and where it fails to be properly 
guarded, there anarchy and injustice appear, 
and civilization goes backward. 

And yet, essential as is legal ownership to the 
stability and progress of society, it is possible 
and easy to let it crowd out of sight the other 
kind of ownership which is still more important, 
namely, that which comes from knowledge, 
sympathy, love, appreciation, enjoyment. 

Of these two kinds of ownership, that which 
stands uppermost in the public mind, is un- 
doubtedly the legal. Speak of ownership to a 
hundred men, and ninety-nine will not only 
suppose you to mean the legal, but will scarcely 
be able to understand that it is possible to refer 
to any other. And yet, the kind of ownership 
which the law is able to create is the more lim- 
ited, the more superficial, the less under control, 
and far the less enduring of the two. 

There are only a few things which we can 
legally own. Of the things that enter as es- 
sentials into your life and mine, how few do we 
buy or sell ! Can we have legal title to the sun- 

[8] 



WEALTH FOR ALL 

shine, which gives life to the world? Can we 
own the air, without which we could not exist? 
Alas! that by our cruel industrial regulations 
we can deprive human beings of sunshine, and 
compel them to live and labor under shocking 
conditions of darkness and foul air — robbed of 
their birthright! Can we buy or sell the 
clouds, or the rains that water the earth, or the 
great oceans, which are the primary reservoirs 
from which all clouds, snows and rains come? 
Can we buy or sell the seasons that come and 
go in their time? Can we own the day or the 
night? Can we own the moon and stars that 
give the night its beauty? the splendor of sun- 
sets? the freshness of dewy mornings? the 
songs of birds ? the endless variety and charm of 
nature ? 

Can we own human society, or the great 
world of human thought, without which our 
lives would be a barren desert? Can we buy or 
sell love? Can we, with any mere legal owner- 
ship, own poetry, or art, or music, or religion? 
We may own a Bible, but is that religion? We 
may own a book of noble poems, or a grand 
piano or a fine picture ; but if that be all, have 
we any part or lot in the world's splendid 
wealth of poetry or music or art? Mere 
money and law papers give no ownership of this 
wealth. To inherit this kingdom we must be 
born again, not of gold or silver or warranty 

[9] 



RICH AND YOUNG 



Selfidbnedd 
ot Xedal 
Owncrabip 



deeds, but of the spirit, which is love, knowl- 
edge, desire, appreciation — a soul alive to 
beauty, to music, to art, to poetry, to religion. 

In another way legal ownership contrasts un- 
favorably with the ownership that is of the 
mind and character. Since it is external, it is 
liable at almost any time to be lost. I may 
have possession of immense properties to-day, 
but to-morrow may bring unexpected reverses 
of fortune and sweep everything out of my 
hands. Not so with the deeper ownership. 
What has been made mine by knowledge, by 
love, and by appreciation, is mine for ever; no 
changes of fortune can rob me of it. It has 
become a part of myself. 

Still another thing, too, should be said of 
legal ownership. We need to be constantly on 
our guard respecting it, or else it will narrow 
us, contract our lives, and make us selfish. 
It need not do this, but to multitudes it does, 
and hence to them becomes a curse. The way 
it does it is this : before we came to have prop- 
erty which we called our own in the restricted 
legal sense, our eyes were open to the larger 
heritage which we have in all things. Our 
minds were not distracted so but that we en- 
joyed all nature, all beautiful things, whatever 
was lovely no matter who owned it. But as soon 
as we got a piece of property that was ours in 
a special, legal way, our eyes were turned to 

[10] 



WEALTH FOR ALL 

that, our affection was centered on that, the 
larger world vanished away, and this little farm, 
or lot, or whatever it was, became virtually our 
world. 

Says the author of that charming little book, 
"A Tour Round My Garden ":—" Property 
is a contract by which you renounce everything 
that is not contained within four walls. When 
I had nothing of my own, I had forests and 
meadows, and the sea, and the sky with all its 
stars. Since I purchased this old house and 
this garden, I have no longer anything but this 
house and this garden. . . . Are you poor.f* 
The sea is yours with its solemn noises, the 
grand voices of its winds, the aspects of its im- 
posing rage, and its still more imposing calm. 
It is yours ; it is likewise others. At some 
future period, when by dint of labor, mental 
exertion, perhaps business, you shall have be- 
come more or less rich, you will have a little 
marble basin constructed in your garden ; or at 
least you will be eager to buy and keep in your 
house a vase containing a couple of gold- 
fishes." But what now of the sea ? Will it not 
be gone? Will it not have contracted to this 
marble basin, or this glass \Sise? 

Alas ! this is what too often happens. Gen- 
erous, and unselfish, and dwelling in a large 
world, so long as we have only that ownership 
of love and appreciation which we share with 

[11] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

all others who love and appreciate, the moment 
we get something as our exclusive own, we are 
only too likely to grow selfish and let our whole 
world of enjoyment narrow to that poor bit of 
legal property! What can prevent such a 
catastrophe? Only one thing — resolutely to 
keep the open eye, the wide vision, and espe- 
cially the unselfish heart. Resolutely to think 
of all property held by us as being what it 
really is, simply a trust, — a trust of which we 
are simply for the time being the stewards. 
Resolutely to keep in mind that the things 
which money can buy are always only second 
rate things. 

JBmerson'g Emerson bought a little farm in Concord 

^arm which did not narrow his life, but greatly en- 

larged it. This was because he saw his acres 
in their larger, their universal relations, and be- 
cause with them he obtained so much that had 
more than money value. Writing of his pur- 
chase, he said: 

" When I bought my farm I did not know 
what a bargain I had in the blue-birds, bobo- 
links and thrushes, which were not charged in 
the bill. As little did I guess what sublime 
mornings and sunsets I was buying, what 
reaches of landscape, and what fields and lanes 
for a tramp. Neither did I fully consider what 
indescribable luxury is our Indian River, which 
runs parallel with the village street, and to 

[12] 



WEALTH FOR ALL 



which every house in that long street has a back 
door through the garden to the river bank. . . . 
Still less did I know what good and true neigh- 
bors I was buying : men of thought and virtue. 
... I did not know what groups of interesting 
school boys and fair school girls were to greet 
me in the highway, and take hold of one's heart 
at the school exhibitions." 

Do all men who buy farms get as much for 
their money, so many appurtenances " not down 
in the bill," as Emerson did? If not, why not.'' 

I went into a great museum. An ignorant 
rich man, who understood nothing of its wealth, 
except what he was told, held the title deed. A 
scientist of extraordinary attainment, who had 
large knowledge concerning everything in it, 
and whose loving labor of a life-time had made 
it what it was, had it in charge. To which of 
the two belonged the museum, in the true sense 
of the word.'' 

I saw a splendid picture, painted by a great 
master. A millionaire who understood nothing 
about art, and cared nothing except to buy with 
his gold what would make the world talk about 
him, purchased the picture, and put it in his 
private gallery, but never went near it except 
to show it to some rich friend as ignorant as 
himself. But the gallery was in charge of an 
artist who appreciated and loved the picture, 
and to whom it was a perpetual delight and in- 

[13] 



Timbicb 
was tbc 
Owner? 



RICH AND YOUNG 



XTboreau 
anD 

wortb 



spiration. Which of the two in the deeper 
sense owned the picture? 

I saw a beautiful garden. The woman who 
paid taxes on it and called it hers, had no love 
for it, and only thought of it as something to 
display. But the gardener who created and 
cared for it, knew and loved and found joy in 
every flower that opened within its borders. 
Which was the real possessor? 

How is it that we make books and writers our 
own? By purchasing volumes and placing 
them on our shelves? or by studying the authors, 
and filling our minds with what they have writ- 
ten ? Who really possesses Shakespeare's works, 
— ^he who owns the rarest and most costly edi- 
tions? or he who has the great dramas in his 
mind and soul? 

How is it that we make the flowers, and 
plants, and birds, — the flora and fauna of a re- 
gion — our own? By buying up real estate? or 
by long-continued and loving study? 

Henry Thoreau had no legal ownership of 
Walden woods or Walden pond. But he knew 
and loved every tree and shrub and flower and 
bird of the one, and every stone on the beach 
and every^ changing light and shadow on the 
mirrored surface of the other. Did that knowl- 
edge and that love give him no proprietorship? 
The world will always think of both pond and 
woods as a hundred times more Thoreau's than 

[14] 



WEALTH FOR ALL 

the men's who had legal title to them. And will 
it not be right? Was there a richer man in 
New England than Thoreau? 

Any of us who have visited England and have 
made a tour of the famous Lake Region of 
Cumberland and Westmoreland, have found 
there a singularly picturesque stretch of valleys 
and lakes, hills and mountains, popularly called 
" Wordsworth's Country." Why is it so called? 
Because Wordsworth held title deeds to it? On 
the contrary, its title deeds were held by men 
whose names we have never heard mentioned,, 
and Wordsworth held legal claim only to a 
modest hillside home. But everywhere the great 
poet had stamped himself upon the region, by 
the fidelity with which he had studied it, under 
all skies, in all seasons, — every rugged peak, 
every mountain tarn, every secret nook of every 
valley, every variety of flower and shrub, every 
effect of sun and shadow on lake and mountain 
side, all the highways and by-ways and secret 
mountain paths, all the homes in the villages 
and cottages in the far off lonely wilds, every 
dweller in all the region from oldest grandsire 
to prattling child, all the history and folklore 
and old tales of the region — and had woven 
them all as warp or woof into the cloth of gold 
of his poetry. Why then should not this region 
be called Wordsworth's Country? Who owned 
it if not he? And who had a better right to 

[15] 



Xa6t 

mill" 



RICH AND YOUNG 

bequeath it to posterity connected with his 
name? Of all the great landed proprietors of 
England, who was so rich as he? 

I have spoken of the fewness of the really 
most valuable things of human life that can be 
bought with money, and of the great number of 
the things which give life its sweetness and its 
worth that are free and that offer themselves 
alike to rich and poor. 

«^ I have never seen this more strikingly illus- 

/lbaDman^6 trated than in a curious and very remarkable 
paper which has recently fallen into my hands. 
The paper has had some circulation under the 
title of "A Madman's Last Will," it having 
been supposed to be the production of a man 
named Charles Lounsbury, at one time an able 
lawyer, who died insane and destitute in the 
Chicago (Cook County) Asylum, in the year 
1900. It turns out, however, to have been writ- 
ten, in nearly the form given below, by Mr. 
Williston Fish, of Chicago, a lawyer and busi- 
ness man, and the author of several books. Its 
beauty and grace, the distinction of its senti- 
ment and the virility of its style, make it emi- 
nently worthy of attention, entirely aside from 
the lesson which it teaches with such unsur- 
passed charm and power as to the real nature 
of riches. 

THE WILL 

"I, Charles Lounsbury, being of sound and 
[16] 



WEALTH FOR ALL 

disposing mind and memory, do hereby make 
and publish this, my last will and testament, in 
order, as justly as may be, to distribute my in- 
terests in the world among succeeding men. 

" Of that part of my interests, which is 
known in law and recognized in the sheep-bound 
volumes as my property, being inconsiderable 
and of no account, I make no disposal; but, 
these things excepted, all else in the world I now 
proceed to devise and bequeath. 

" Item — I give to good fathers and mothers, 
in trust for their children, all good little words 
of praise and encouragement and all quaint pet 
names and endearments; and I charge said 
parents to use them justly, but generously, as 
the needs of their children shall require. 

" Item — I leave to children inclusively but 
only for the term of their childhood, all and 
every the flowers of the fields and the blossoms 
of the woods, with the right to play among 
them freely, according to the customs of chil- 
dren, warning them at the same time against 
the thistles and the thorns. And I devise to 
children the banks of the brooks and the golden 
sands beneath the waters thereof, and the odors 
of the willows that dip therein, and the white 
clouds that float high over the giant trees. And 
I leave to the children the long, long days to 
be merry in a thousand ways, and the nights, 
and the moon, and the train of the Milky Way, 

[17] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

to wonder at, but subject, nevertheless, to the 
rights hereinafter given to lovers. 

" Item — I devise to boys jointly all the use- 
less, idle fields and commons where ball may be 
played, all pleasant waters where one may 
swim, all snowclad hills where one may coast, 
and all streams and ponds where one may fish, 
or where, when grim winter comes, one may 
skate, — to have and to hold the same for the 
period of their boyhood; and all meadows with 
the clover blossoms and the butterflies thereof, 
the woods with their appurtenances, the squirrels 
and birds, and the echoes and strange noises, 
and all distant places which may be visited, to- 
gether with the adventures there found. 

" And I give to said boys each his own place 
at the fireside at night, with all pictures that 
may be seen in the burning wood, to enjoy with- 
out let or hindrance and without any incum- 
brance or care. 

" Item — To lovers I devise their imaginary 
world, with whatever they may need, as the stars 
of the sky, the red roses by all the walls, the 
bloom of the hawthorne, the sweet strains of 
music, and aught else that may be desired to 
figure to each other the lastingness and beauty 
of their love. 

" Item — To young men, jointly, I devise and 
bequeath all boisterous, inspiring sports of 
rivalry, and I give to them the disdain of weak- 

[18] 



WEALTH FOR ALL 



ness, and undaunted confidence in their own 
strength. Though they are rude, I leave to 
them the power to make lasting friendships and 
of possessing companions, and to them exclu- 
sively I give all merry songs and brave choruses 
to sing with lusty voices. 

" Item — And to those who are no longer 
children or youths or lovers, I leave memory, 
and I bequeath to them the volumes of the 
poems of Burns and Shakespeare and of other 
poets, if there be others, to the end that they 
may live the old days over again, freely and 
fully, without tithe or diminution. 

" Item — To our loved ones with snowy crowns, 
I bequeath the happiness of old age, the love 
and gratitude of their children until they fall 
asleep." 

The other day I was reading an account of 
one who was declared to be " the happiest man 
in London." Who was he. f^ A millionaire .^^ No. 
A member of the aristocracy.? No. A man 
who had ease and luxury and leisure.? No. He 
was a laboring man, with very moderate wages, 
who lived in a small flat of two rooms, with liis 
invalid wife, who for twenty-six years had been 
confined to her room and her bed, and for whom, 
during all this time, he had cared, doing with 
his own hands all the work of the precious little 
home — precious because she was the center and 
light and joy of it. 

[19] 



Mealtb 

anD 

1bappine60 



RICH AND YOUNG 

In the morning he arose early, cooked the 
breakfast for the two, washed the dishes, tidied 
the rooms, rendered to his wife with tender so- 
licitude such service as she needed, placed her 
mid-day meal on a stand beside her bed, and 
with a loving kiss went away to his day's toil. 
When his work was over at night, with glad 
steps he hastened back to her whose smile was 
his heaven, eager to render still further service, 
and doubly rewarded when he could add any 
smallest drop to the cup of her comfort or her 
happiness. 

For twenty-six years this had gone on, the 
husband never complaining and never weary- 
ing, — all his privation and self-sacrifice (what 
others would call privation and self-sacrifice) a 
delight to him because prompted by love. 

And the wife, bed-ridden though she was, was 
well nigh as happy as the husband. 

What was the explanation? Both were hap- 
py because both were rich with the most pre- 
cious wealth that this world knows anything 
about, the wealth of pure and unselfish affection. 
If any millionaire in London found half the joy 
in life that they found, it was because he pos- 
sessed other kinds of wealth than his money, 
and better than money can buy. 

Mbatid Let us inquire exactly. What is wealth? 

^ealtb? Jesus hints the true answer when He says: 

" What shall it profit a man if he gain the 

[20] 



WEALTH FOR ALL 

whole world and lose himself?" Mohammed 
also hints the eternal reply when he says : " A 
man's true wealth is the good he has done in this 
world. When he dies, mortals will inquire, What 
property has he left behind him? but angels will 
ask him, What good deeds hast thou sent before 
thee?" 

Real wealth is whatsoever deepens, enlarges, 
enriches or enobles human life. And it is 
nothing else. 

The seeing eye is wealth. The ear attuned 
to music is wealth. The alert mind is wealth. 
Knowledge is wealth. Health and strength are 
wealth. Hope is wealth. Courage is wealth. 
Good deeds are wealth. Honor and integrity 
and spotless character are great wealth. A will 
in harmony with the Divine Will is precious 
wealth. Love is wealth beyond all words. And 
the absence of these is poverty, no matter how 
much of what men superficially call wealth one 
may possess. 

How rich is the man who enjoys and appre- IHOW TRiCb 
ciates good music ! ^bct Bre ! 

How rich is the man who loves good litera- 
ture, and through the printed page enjoys 
daily companionship with the great souls of the 
present and the past! 

A scholar with his knowledge, how rich is he ! 

A lover of nature who finds joy in sun and 
storm, and companionship in mountains and 
stars, how glorious is his wealth! 

[21] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

Not less rich is the husband who possesses the 
love of a true wife, or the wife who owns the 
affection of a true husband. 

A mother presses a sweet babe to her breast, 
and kisses its cheeks again and again in her 
ecstacy of affection. How rich she is! 

A father looks with pride on his five growing 
boys. How rich he is! 

A young man sets out upon life, to carve out 
for himself a career. He is without a dollar; 
but he has health, courage, a good education, 
and an ambition to make his life noble and use- 
ful. How rich is he ! 

The business man who through all tempta- 
tions and pressures has kept his integrity, how 
rich is he! 

The public man who has never stooped from 
high honor, how priceless is his wealth of man- 
hood! But the public man who has sold his 
manhood for gold, how miserably he has im- 
poverished himself ! 

He who has faith in God, faith that, over 
and under and at the heart of all that is dark 
in human life, there is a Divine Wisdom and 
Love, is very rich. 

He who has faith in immortality, faith that 
his loved ones are his forever, faith that, though 

** Hearts are dust, heart's loves remain ; 
Heart's love will meet him again," 

has great riches. 

[22] 



WEALTH FOR ALL 

The office of religion is to dower men with 
wealth — wealth that is eternal. 

A millionaire rolls by in his carriage, without ConttadtS 
joy, without hope, without faith, without eyes 
to see, tired to death from chasing about over 
the earth trying to find some place in which his 
selfish soul can be happy, and, as the result of 
it all, seriously questioning whether life is worth 
living. How miserably poor he is ! 

A day laborer goes by on foot, on his way 
home from his daily toil. He has a strong arm, 
a brave heart, a clear head, a free mind; a wife 
and children whom he loves; a future before 
him to which he looks forward with hope. How 
rich he is! 

We are apt to think we are doing most to 
supply men's wants and to make them rich when 
we furnish them with money or material pos- 
sessions. This is often the greatest of mistakes. 
Even the poor tramp that asks for bread or 
old clothes at our door needs food and clothing 
for his mind even more than for his body. 

" I gave a beggar from my little store 
Of well-earned gold. He spent the shining 

ore 
And came again, and yet again, still cold 

And hungry as before. 
I gave a thought, and through that thought 
of mine 

[23] 



RICH AND YOUNG 



Superiority 
to Cixcrxm^ 
stances 



He found himself a man, supreme, divine, 
Bold, clothed and crowned with blessings 
manifold. 
And now he begs no more." 

One of the most pitiful things about the lives 
of most of us is the fact that to such a degree 
we are slaves to external conditions — ^to our 
wealth if we have material wealth, or to our 
poverty if in material things we are poor. 
What can break or mitigate this slavery? 

Nothing so surely as the possession of riches 
of the mind and heart. 

How superior internal riches makes one alike 
to external wealth and to external poverty is 
well shown by an incident in the life of James 
Russell Lowell. On the occasion of his first visit 
to the home of the woman who afterward be- 
came his wife, Lowell wrote to his friend, 
Charles Eliot Norton, saying, "I went down 
last week to Portland to make the acquaintance 
of her family, and I liked them, especially the 
mother, who is a person of great character. 
They live in a little bit of a house in a little bit 
of a street, behind the great house (the biggest 
in town) in which they were brought up, and 
not one of them seemed conscious that they were 
not welcoming me to a palace. There were no 
apologies for want of room, no Dogberry hints 
at losses, nor anything of the kind, but all was 
simple, ladylike and hearty. A family of girls 

[24] 



WEALTH FOR ALL 

who expected to be rich and have had to support 
themselves are not hkelj to have any nonsense 
in them. I find Miss Dunlop's education very 
complete in having had the two great teachers, 
wealth and poverty ; one has taught her not to 
value money, the other to be independent of it." 
Those who are poor in soul chafe at external 
poverty. But make men and women rich enough 
in soul and they smile as sweetly in the midst of 
poverty as when surrounded by the greatest 
wealth. 

We often hear men inquire concerning B flian'6 
another. How much is he worth.? meaning, how **TKIlortb' 
much money has he? As if the worth of a man 
could be measured in dollars. 

A shrewd old man once said to his daughter, 
*' Be sure, my dear, that you never marry a poor 
man. But remember that the poorest man in 
the world is one that has money and nothing 
else." This reminds us of the Greek Themisto- 
cles, who, being asked whether he would rather 
his daughter should marry a poor good man or 
a rich bad man, answered, that he would much 
rather have his daughter marry a man without 
money than money without a man. 

The man who really owns himself owns the 
world. You can put him in no place in which 
he is not rich. On the other hand, he who owns 
the world and is not rich in himself, is wretch- 
edly poor, wherever he goes or stays. 

[25] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

I believe there are no poorer men living than 
some whose wordly possessions are immensely 
great. The long years and years of effort and 
strain to get rich, mean almost necessarily the 
dwarfing of the soul's higher powers and possi- 
bilities, the gradual degrading of the soul to 
the money level, the loss of the power to enjoy 
the finer and nobler things of life. 

Mow to ^o ^^y o^ us ask the question how we may 

BCQUire obtain the largest possible possessions? The 

iiuleaitb answer depends upon what kind of posses- 

sions we seek. We can get the most of legal 
possessions, undoubtedly, by living definitely 
for these, by turning all our powers into 
money-making and money-saving powers, — by 
making Mammon our god, and serving him day 
and night. 

But, if we recognize other possessions as 
more valuable than the legal, the way to enrich 
ourselves with the largest amount of these is to 
cultivate our minds, and store them with knowl- 
edge, so that all nature shall be to us an open 
book ; to become acquainted with the great past 
and its noble life, so as to feel that this is all 
ours ; to mingle heartily and sympathetically in 
society around us, so as to learn to recognize 
our fellow -men as our brothers, and their inter- 
ests as our own; to open our hearts unselfishly 
to love, to appreciation, to the willing and glad 
service of every good cause that appeals to us; 

[26] 



WEALTH FOR ALL 

and, above all, to open our souls to the comfort 
and joy and strength of religion and of God. 

Thus, whether our bank accounts are large 
or small, and whether the deeds and mortgages 
in our strong boxes are many or few or none, 
we shall have riches that will enlarge and enno- 
ble our lives, which will gladden all our days, 
which will bless all with whom we have to do, 
which cannot be taken from us by thief or 
cheating fellow-man or business director, or 
even by death itself, but which we shall carry 
with us to be our permanent and eternal wealth 
in whatever future the good God may have for 
us beyond this world. 

The lives of us all would be simply inexpres- **2m 

sibly rich if we would appropriate even half ^bflt^a 

the wealth God offers us! Writes quaint and ^ 
devout George Herbert: 

" For us the winds do blow, 
The earth doth rest, heaven move, and waters 

flow. 
O mighty love! man is one world, and hath 
Another to befriend him." 

What we need is the open vision, the appre- 
ciative mind, the thankful heart. Without 
these there is no joy for us in this world; and, 
what is even more serious, there cannot be in 
any other to which God can ever take us. 

The inappreciative mind complains of the 

[27] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

sun, that there are spots on its surface, instead 
of seeing with joy his glowing face of kindly 
fire that fills the whole world with light and life. 
The unappreciative mind complains of the rose 
that it is not a lily, and of the lily that it is 
not a rose ; of the spring that it is not the sum- 
mer, and of the summer that it is not cool and 
fresh like the autumn; and of the starlit night 
that it is not bright like the noon. With an 
impoverished mind and heart, the legal owner- 
ship of the whole earth would still leave us poor. 
With mind and heart endowed with knowledge, 
love, and thankfulness, the loss of all worldly 
possessions would still leave us rich. 

*' In palaces are hearts that ask. 

In discontent and pride. 
Why life is such a dreary task. 

And all good things denied! 
And hearts in poorest huts admire 

How love has, in their aid, — 
Love that not ever seems to tire, — 

Such rich provision made!" 

Thus it is that the mind creates and the 
mind destroys, the mind makes rich and the 
mind makes poor, the mind transforms the 
earth we tread into hells and heavens. 

Says Paul : " All things are yours." Yes, 
all best things, all things that are most precious 
and enduring, are ours if we will have them. 

[28] 



WEALTH FOR ALL 

In the lower and poorer sense of wealth, 
which is of the flesh and of material things, we 
cannot all be rich, and it is a small matter that 
we cannot; but in the higher sense, which is of 
the soul, there is not one of us but may be rich 
with a wealth that is measureless, infinite in 
value, and lasting as God. 



[29] 



II 

BEAUTY WHICH ALL MAY ATTAIN 



" The sense of beauty is the mainspring of 
civilization. God planted the sense of beauty 
in us to be our educator. Through it He says 
to us perpetually, *Come up higher.' " 

FEEDERICK H. HEDGE. 

" The outward form takes its glory or its 
baseness from the inward spirit." 

STOPFORD A. BROOKE 

" We are all sculptors and painters, and our 
material is our own flesh and blood and bones. 
Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's 
features, any meanness or sensuality to embrute 

*'*^^™* HENRY D. THOREAU 



BEAUTY WHICH ALL MAY ATTAIN 

"*■' lo our good fortune to live in a world where a Motld 
Deauty abounds. We can scarcely open our Ot JSeaut^ 
eyes without seeing it. Day and night are alike 
full of it ; so are all the seasons. 

Beauty takes many forms. There is the 
beauty of the inanimate world, as skies, seas, 
sunsets. There is the beauty of the vegetable 
world in all its vast and varied and wonderful 
range. There is the beauty of the animal world, 
from the infinitesimally small, revealed only by 
the microscope, up to man. And then finally, 
there is the glorious world of human beauty. 

I think it is plain that all this marvellous 
beauty, of sky, and earth, and ocean, and hu- 
man form divine, would not be here if it had not 
a valuable purpose to serve. I cannot think its 
creation has been a mistake. It would seem 
that the Divine Author of all things must Him- 
self care for beauty, or else He would not have 
so filled the world with its enchanting presence. 

And if God does love beauty, why should not 
we? If He has given us faculties to recognize 
and enjoy this fine side of the world and of life, 
shall we impoverish ourselves by not using 
them.? Shall we willingly cut ourselves off from 
one of the sweetest and most unfailing sources 
of happiness that we can know in this world.? 
For surely 

[33] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever: 
Its loveliness increases; it will never 
Pass into nothingness, but still will keep 
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet 
breathing." 

So much did the wise Goethe appreciate the 
power of beauty to add joy to life, that in his 
Wilhelm Meister he lays down this rule: "Man 
soUte alle Tage wenigstens ein kleines Lied 
horen, ein gutes Gedicht lesen, ein treffliches 
Gemalde sehen."* 

This is a very simple rule; but who doubts 
that, faithfully carried out, it would transform 
the life of millions into something wholly new, 
pushing back the cruel walls of drudgery that 
shut them in, and giving them an outlook into 
the sunshine ; lifting them up out of their bond- 
age to routine and the hard physical, to a height 
whence they could see the sky, and feel them- 
selves in touch with humanity and hope and 
God? 

*f)uman All kinds of beauty are not on a level. In 

JBeaut^ what kind should we most interest ourselves, 

and learn to find most delight ? In other words, 
at what point does the world's beauty rise to its 
best? Is it in a rose? Is it in an apple orchard 
in full bloom? Is it in a rainbow spanning a 

*" Every day we should at least hear one little song, read one 
good poem and look at one choice picture." 

[34] 



BEAUTY FOR ALL 

storm cloud? Is it in a broad expanse of water, 
under moon and stars? I think we must an- 
swer : In none of these ; but in the perfect hu- 
man face and form. 

Why then should we not most admire human 
beauty? And why should we not all desire it 
for ourselves and for those whom we love? Is 
there any human desire more legitimate? 

Surely it is worthy of any woman's ambition 
to be beautiful. I do not say to be a pretty 
doll. I do not say to practice artificial decep- 
tions which in the end repel. But to have a 
face and a form beautiful with health and sym- 
metrical development, and animated and irra- 
diated by intelligence, by the graces of culture, 
by a beautiful soul, — ^that is surely worthy the 
effort of any woman. 

Rightly understood, beauty is also a worthy 
object of man's desire. A fine form, an erect 
carriage, a noble bearing, a well-developed phy- 
sique, a modulated voice, a face expressive of 
intelligence, gentleness, courage and strength, — 
surely these are not to be lightly regarded by 
any man. 

I think that any of us who are parents ought 
to teach our children not to despise beauty, but 
to put high store upon it, and to strive to attain 
it. However, let us not make the mistake of 
fostering in them the shallow notion that it is a 
thing merely of the skin and the hair and the 

[35] 



RICH AND YOUNG 



Biternal 
anD 

fntetnal 
:XBeautis 



physical features, much less of the fashion plate. 
Such so-called beauty is as thin as every other 
kind of veneer. It profanes the high thought 
of beauty to see in it nothing beyond these sur- 
face things. 

Beauty is of two distinctly different kinds. 
One is the beauty that can be put on and put 
off; the other is the beauty that is a part of 
ourselves. 

Doubtless the beauty which can be put on and 
put off has its place. I would be the last to 
speak disparagingly of it. There is such a 
thing as beautiful clothing. There is such a 
thing as beautiful adornment of the person. 
The reasonable use of these is not to be despised. 
I would not be willing to say that the most ex- 
quisite handiwork of men, or the most precious 
treasures of the mine or the sea, can find any 
more fitting service than that of lending added 
charm to the human person. 

But there is another kind of beauty that 
rises as much higher than any mere externality, 
as the mind rises above matter. It is the beauty 
that is in us and of us. Stopford Brooke 
hints it when he says : " The outward form 
takes its glory or its baseness from the inward 
spirit." 

The difference between the two kinds of 
beauty may perhaps be illustrated in this way: 
Here is a tree. That form of beauty which is 

[36] 



BEAUTY FOR ALL 

superficial and external comes to the tree and 
attaches to it externally, artificial foliage, 
wreathes, garlands, Chinese lanterns, wax fruits, 
and such like things, and thus makes a spectacle, 
which for the moment may be very attractive. 
But there is in it all no life ; and it is deceptive 
and transitory. 

That form of beauty which is internal and 
natural comes to the tree through rain and sun 
and proper soil and renewal of life from within. 
As a result we soon see the inward life of the 
tree manifesting itself outwardly ; buds swell on 
every twig; flowers burst into bloom, forming a 
robe for the tree more gorgeous than Solomon's ; 
then follows the dress of green, exquisitely 
wrought ; and in the autumn luscious fruit loads 
its boughs. Thus we have a beauty that lasts 
the whole season through, and advances from 
grace to grace and from glory to glory. And 
the next season it does the same; and the next, 
and the next, on continuously. And why? 
Because it is of the tree. It is only the coming 
forth to expression of what is in the tree, as its 
deepest life. 

In the same way, the beauty which should be 
most prized by us in connection with ourselves 
and other human beings, is not that which is 
attached to us, at one particular time or an- 
other, as dress, or adornings ; it is that which 
is of us, — the spontaneous and necessary ex- 

[37] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

pression of the life that is in us. Such beauty 
will endure, and will grow richer with the years. 

The process of reaching out and getting 
beauty of some external kind and attaching it 
to ourselves can never be more than to a limited 
degree satisfactory. It has to be done over and 
over, and forever over and over. It is costly 
too. Few men could afford to own trees if they 
had to go to the expense of keeping them 
decked with leaves and flowers and fruit brought 
from the outside and hung upon their branches. 
It is not less expensive to be obliged to depend 
for personal beauty upon that which we must 
buy and attach to ourselves, instead of having 
a well-spring of beauty within us. 

Worst of all, any externally beautiful things 
that we can get and attach to our persons, as 
clothing or ornaments, fail utterly to make us^ 
ourselves, beautiful. If we, in our real selves 
of mind and spirit, were unbeautiful before we 
obtained the adornments, we are just as un- 
beautiful after. Fine clothing or ornaments 
may draw attention for the time being away 
from our unbeautifulness, but it remains just 
the same ; and all who come near us know it, and 
we know it, and God knows it. 

We ought to desire more than a diversion of 
eyes from our ugliness. We ought to want real 
beauty, — ^beauty so true and deep that it will 
stand the test of time, of our neighbors, of our 

[38] 



BEAUTY FOR ALL 

own eyes, and of the scrutiny of Him who can- 
not be deceived. 

How can we all become really beautiful? 

Human beauty has a threefold basis, — physi- 
cal, intellectual, and moral. Growth in beauty 
must be based upon threefold culture, — of the 
body, to give it health and symmetry ; of the in- 
tellect, to give it knowledge and alertness; of 
the moral nature, to give it strength and grace. 
Let us see what these involve. 

That beauty has a physical basis will be gen- pbl20(cal 
erally confessed. It will not be quite so gener- ^cautg 
ally confessed that that physical basis is a 
purely natural one, lying wholly in good 
health and a perfect development of the body. 
In the past there has been wide-spread depend- 
ence placed upon the artificial as a producer of 
physical beauty, as for example, artificial small- 
ness of the feet; artificial slenderness of the 
waist ; artificial whiteness of the skin ; cosmetics, 
etc. 

There have been times when the idea widely 
prevailed that a pale cheek, a languid air, a 
condition of semi-invalidism, are signs of beauty 
in women. In our times we are getting the 
truer thought that the elastic step, the glow of 
health on the cheek, the ability to walk and ride 
and swim, and drive a horse, and climb moun- 
tains, and bear a part in the world's work are 
far more beautiful. It is coming to be seen 

[39] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

that the best cosmetics are fresh air, sunshine, 
exercise, nutritious food, regular sleep taken 
between ten o'clock at night and seven in the 
morning, regular work done every day, worthy 
objects to live for, and a quiet, regular, active, 
natural and useful life. 

2)t. Says Dr. Dudley A. Sargent, Physical Di- 

Sargent rector at Harvard University : " Women have 

on Beauty begun to realize that the surest road to beauty 
of face and figure, as well as health of body, 
lies through the path of physical culture. Out 
door games, such as tennis, golf and horseback 
riding, have served to make the college and so- 
ciety girl stronger, while her sister of the shops 
and factories finds recreation and muscle-nour- 
ishment in the factory gymnasium and public 
gymnasium. By these modern changes, woman 
is gradually coming into her own. Her sex is 
becoming strong and well developed. While 
man has had the advantages of centuries of 
training along this line, woman's ambition was 
latent; but now that she has started toward the 
intended goal, her development and progress 
will be rapid. Perhaps she will yet overtake 
man in a field which he has been wont to claim 
as all his own." 

The first direction, then, in which we who 
care for beauty in man or woman must learn to 
look for it, is not to the fashion plate, or to the 
drug store, but to the bath-room, to the proper 

[40] 



BEAUTY FOR ALL 

ventilation of our sleeping apartments, to the 
number of hours we spend each day in the fresh 
air and the sunshine, to the provisions we make 
for our physical health and development as hu- 
man beings. 

And the first direction in which we who care 
for the beauty of our children must learn to 
look for that, is, to their habits, — ^to see that 
these are regular and natural ; to their sleep, to 
see that it is plentiful and at timely hours ; to 
their work and study, to see that these are done 
under conditions of health ; to their play, to see 
that it is not cut off; to their conditions of life 
generally, to see that they are simple and ra- 
tional. 

It has been said that if the laws of God which 
pertain to the health of the body were perfectly 
obeyed by even a single generation, the next 
generation would be physically beautiful. This 
is doubtless an over statement, but it is certainly 
in the direction of the truth. 

The ancient Greeks were doubtless the most 
beautiful race physically that the world has 
ever seen. Why? Not simply because they 
were wise enough to cultivate physical beauty, 
but because they were wise enough to cultivate 
it in the only way in which it is possible to cul- 
tivate it successfully, namely, by so training 
their youth as to develop to the very utmost 
their physical vigor, activity, strengh, endur- 

[41] 



RICH AND YOUNG 



irnteUcct« 

uat 

JBeautB 



ance, bodily symmetry, health. They knew that 
the true way to make either trees or human 
beings beautiful is to fill them with abounding 
life. 

This brings me to the second source of beauty, 
the intellectual. 

Human beauty must have more than a mere 
physical basis, else would a wax figure be as 
beautiful as a live person. 

It is well known that peoples in low states of 
civilization are seldom fine looking, — are seldom 
possessed of anything that we would call beauty. 
Why.'* The principle reason seems to be the 
stolidity, the dullness of mind of these peoples, 
which makes them unattractive whatever may 
be their physical features. There is no mind- 
beauty to shine through the physical, to light 
it up. So, too, in civilized lands, persons who 
live low down in the senses are never beautiful 
with any kind of beauty except the lowest, the 
coarsest, the most transitory. 

How much mind has to do with beauty, we 
see every day. We all know persons whose skin 
is fair, whose features are symmetrical, who, 
judged by physical standards alone, should be 
pronounced fine looking. Yet they are not. 
Why? The trouble is, there is no irradition of 
the countenance by a fine intelligence behind it 
and speaking through it. The eyes are dull. 
The face is hard and heavy, if not coarse and 
sensual. 

[42] 



BEAUTY FOR ALL 

On the other hand, we all know very plain 
and ordinary faces, distinctly homely faces, if 
judged simply by physical standards, that 
somehow we never think of as homely. Indeed, 
we have the distinct impression that they are 
beautiful faces. What is the explanation? 
When we meet them their eyes are lighted with 
thought, their countenances beam with intelli- 
gence, the spiritual so transforms the physical 
that the plainness of the features disappears, 
and beauty sits in its place. 

Said one lady of another : " She is accounted 
very plain; but I have seen her so absolutely 
beautiful as to draw everybody in the room to 
her. When she is happy, and speaking with 
animation, her face kindles with a perfect ra- 
diance." 

Ruskin, in the second volume of his Modern IRuBTlin on 
Painters, where he discusses the principles of ^cautlg 
beauty, puts great stress upon the importance 
of the intellectual element, — " the operation of 
the mind upon the body ; the intellectual powers 
upon the features, in the fine cutting and chis- 
elling of them, and removal from them of signs 
of sensuality and sloth by which they are blunt- 
ed and deadened, and the substitution of energy 
and intensity for vacancy and insipidity." By 
reason of the lack of these mental qualities, he 
declares " the faces of many fair women are 
utterly spoiled." The mind, he urges, gives 

[43] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

*' keenness to the eye and fine moulding and de- 
velopment to the brow." 

Many a young lady of twenty dreads to grow 
older for fear her beauty will wane, and thus 
she will become less attractive. Alas, the fact 
that she thinks of beauty as only physical shows 
that probably she will grow less attractive as 
she grows older. What a pity it is that she 
does not understand that the finest beauty is of 
the soul, and that this beauty she may have and 
keep and get more abundantly, and thus be 
more attractive at forty than at twenty, and 
preserve her charm right on in spite of the 
years ! Beauty that draws its chief life from 
the active mind and the noble spirit is almost 
independent of years ; indeed it is likely to rise 
to its perfection only with considerable fulness 
of years. 

It has long been known that the most attrac- 
tive women of history have not generally been 
young women. It seems also to be true that 
they have not usually been women of great phy- 
sical beauty. Their power has oftenest been 
mental. Even Aspasia and Cleopatra seem not 
to have been so beautiful physically as many 
another Greek or Egyptian woman. Their 
fascination was of the mind. 

ASoral Closely connected with the intellect as a source 

JScautlg of beauty, stands the moral nature. It is not 

simply the intellect that speaks through the 
face ; the whole character does so. 

[44] 



BEAUTY FOR ALL 

Says Amiel : " Why are we ugly ? Because 
we are not in the angelic state; because we are 
evil, morose, unhappy. Heroism, ecstacy, pray- 
er, love, enthusiasm, leave a halo around the 
brow, for they are a setting free of the soul, 
which through them gains force to make its en- 
velope transparent and shine through upon all 
around it. Beauty is, then, a phenomenon be- 
longing to the spiritualization of matter. In- 
tense life and supreme joy can make the most 
simple mortal dazzlingly beautiful." 

We have an old proverb, " Handsome is who 
handsome does." This is more than a neat way 
of saying that a good deed makes us forget 
whether the doer is handsome or ugly. There 
is something in the habitual doing of good deeds, 
at least there is something in the doing of good 
deeds coupled with habitual thinking of good 
thoughts from which good deeds spring, which 
tends to make the face grow kindlier, more re- 
fined, more spiritually attractive, and therefore 
more beautiful. I am sure that this is so. 

Many a person longs to be beautiful, oh with 
such a passionate longing! Many a young 
woman feels her life blighted because she is not 
beautiful. But it is the shallow beauty of the 
external that she thinks of. The deeper beauty 
which comes from intelligence, and especially 
the deepest, highest, most captivating, most en- 
during beauty of all, that comes from the graces 

[45] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

of the spirit, she forgets. Yet this highest 
beauty waits all the while to be hers if she will 
have it. 

TKAtinltleg Nobody likes wrinkles. We usually think of 

wrinkles as signs either of ugliness or old age, 
or both. How may they be prevented? By 
preventing the causes, which are generally men- 
tal or moral, not physical. Wrinkles begin in- 
side. Though they seem to be located on the 
surface, their roots are really in the brain. 
There are as many different kinds of wrinkles 
as there are different sorts of character. Most 
wrinkles are simply creases in the skin made by 
habitual or fixed expressions of countenance; 
and expressions of countenance are created by 
thoughts and feelings. The way to prevent 
ugly wrinkles, therefore, is to prevent ugly 
thoughts. There is no other way. Skilful 
massage of the face may do something, but not 
much. The massage which is effective is of the 
mind, — that which drives out ill nature, impa- 
tience, worry, anger, bitterness, envy, irritation ; 
and gives peace, content, the forward instead of 
the backward look, kind feelings, hope, faith; 
for there was 

" Never thought but left Its stiffened trace, 
Its fossil footprints in the plastic face." 

Said a certain lady : " I would as soon think 
of leaving my room in the morning before put- 

[46] 



BEAUTY FOR ALL 

ting on my dress, as before putting on my 
face." How may an attractive face be put on? 
Not primarily by the aid of the looking glass. 
That way lies failure. There must be some- 
thing deeper. Begin the day by summoning 
kindly feelings to the heart, and sunny and 
brave thoughts to the mind, and your face will 
not lack charm. Fill your heart with sunshine, 
and soon enough you will have a face to match 
it. 

Frances Willard, one of the queens among jftancca 
the women of America, has told us in the story vRHularD 
of her life, how in her childhood she longed to 
be beautiful, and it was a great trouble to her 
that her features were plain, until a wise older 
friend changed the whole course of her thoughts 
by showing her that beauty of mind was worth 
far more than were any graces of the body ; and 
from that time it was her constant longing and 
prayer to be made beautiful within. With this 
aim before her she grew up into one of the no- 
blest women of the world and one of the most 
winsome. 

Sometimes beauty comes to human beings by 
paths of which they little dream. Persons cry 
out selfishly for beauty; but alas! God gives 
them duty instead. Bye-and-bye they learn to 
forget themselves and to bend lovingly to their 
tasks. Then out of their self -forgetting, out 
of their love, out of their duty-doing, a higher 

[47] 



3face 



RICH AND YOUNG 

beauty is born for them, infinitely higher, a 
beauty which all men love, a beauty which 
awakens envy in nobody, a beauty which en- 
dures, a beauty which makes them akin to the 
angels and to God. 

IbOW tbc Says Schopenhauer : " The face of a man 

jfi&ind gives us fuller and more interesting information 

Qatvce tbe than his tongue ; for his face is the one record 
of all he has thought and endeavored." 

Says Thoreau : " We are all sculptors and 
painters, and our material is our own flesh and 
blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once 
to refine a man's features, any meanness or sen- 
suality to embrute them." 

Says William C. Gannett: "A face where sin 
has plowed its gullies deep, is a glimpse of the 
uncovered hell. Woe unto them who have had 
aught to do, by parentage or by example, with 
the driving of that plow !" 

Writes Ruskin : " On all the beautiful fea- 
tures of men and women, throughout the ages, 
are written the solemnities and majesty of the 
law they knew, with the charity and meekness 
of their obedience; and on all unbeautiful fea- 
tures are written either ignorance of the law, or 
the malice and insolence of disobedience." 

Says Emerson : " Beauty is the mark that 
God sets upon virtue." 

Again Emerson : " You shall not tell me by 
languages and titles a catalogue of the vol- 

[48] 



BEAUTY FOR ALL 

umes you have read. You shall make me feel 
what periods you have lived. A man shall walk, 
as the poets have described that goddess, in a 
robe painted all over with wonderful events and 
experiences; — his own form and features by 
their exalted intelligence shall be that variegat- 
ed vest." 

Says Bronson Alcott : " Were we not sin- 
ners we should all be handsome." " Everybody 
feels a little wronged if he or she is not hand- 
some. Somebody has sinned, and this is the 
symbol." 

There are no such records as those inscribed 
upon the human body but especially upon the 
human countenance, were we only skilled to read 
them. 

What tragedies look out of human eyes ! 
What reminiscences of joy lurk in the curves 
that circle about human lips! What stories of 
toil, of endurance, of sorrow, of suffering, of 
defeat, of victory, of loves and hates, of ecsta- 
sies and despairs, are written in the lines that 
deepen and deepen with the years on human 
foreheads and cheeks! 

Great qualities of mind and heart often Xincoltl 
shine through the features and make even the 
plainest face seem dignified and attractive. We 
have a marked illustration of this in Abraham 
Lincolr, whose face was plain and homely to an 
extraordinary degree, and yet who to those that 

[49] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

knew him well came to seem almost beautiful. 
Socrates was a notable illustration of the same 
in the ancient world. Thousands of others 
might be found, both men and women. 

In cases of men of noble character even the 
furrows on their brow are not lines of ugliness 
which repel, but of daring, tenderness, strength 
and greatness which charm and win. 

Writes Ernest Crosby: 

" They are grand old men whose faces hang on 
my study wall. 

I have done with the old beauty, of the flaw- 
less marble face, unscarred by thought or 
struggle or experience. 

I want a new and nobler beauty: 

I want the tragic beauty of counteiiance that 
tells of the conflicts and triumphs of life; 

The palimpsest on which we may decipher all 
that is best in human history; 

The beautiful lines and curves laboriously 
wrought by persevering love; 

The face on which great souls have been try- 
ing for years to stamp themselves, and 
which grow more beautiful to the end — 

Such are the faces of my grand old men. 

*' Men create themselves — it is only babes that 
God creates. 
A new idea harbored and entertained will re- 
make a man. 

[50] 



BEAUTY FOR ALL 



A great idea will make a little man great, it 
will write itself upon his blank face and 
transform its meanness and pettiness. 

Let us open our doors to the spirit that made 
the grand old men." 

There is no other such sculptor of the face, 
as the human spirit within. The mind toils all 
its earthly years to crave and mould a body 
after its likeness; and nobody and nothing can 
defeat its purpose. As a vacant mind makes a 
vacant face, so a sensual disposition carves its 
sensuality on the countenance; a cold heart 
creates a hard and steely look; cruelty in the 
heart writes its cruelty on the features; moral 
badness within soon finds a tell-tale outside — 
just as scrofula in the blood breaks out in sores 
on the skin. 

On the other hand, nothing carves the lines 
of serenity and dignity on the countenance so 
surely as great and noble thoughts and deeds. 
Let a high purpose or a splendid enthusiasm 
burn habitually in the soul, and how certainly 
the face will become glorified by it! Let kind- 
ness be in the heart, and no power can keep 
the face from revealing its sweet presence. 

We sometimes imagine that pain and sorrow 
destroy beauty. Yes, sometimes they do. If 
they are borne complainingly, and with a bit- 
ter spirit, they only too soon make the fairest 

[51] 



patn and 
Sorrow aa 
Sculptors 
anO 
:fBeautiffer0 



RICH AND YOUNG 

faces look lined and old and ugly. But if they 
are met bravely, uncomplainingly and sweetly, 
they give to the human face a deeper and di- 
viner beauty than perhaps it ever otherwise 
obtains. 

I have known a woman who for seven years 
never walked a step, but lay in her bed weak 
and suffering, or at best sat up and was wheeled 
about in an invalid's chair; but all the while 
she was the center, the delight and the inspira- 
tion of a large circle of friends. Though well 
educated in earlier years and passionately fond 
of literature, she was not able to read much; 
but what she did read was of the best, and 
others gladly read to her; so that her mind was 
always well and freshly stored with the best 
thoughts of the best writers ; and all this intel- 
lectual treasure she gave so freely and with such 
charm to others, that her room became a sort 
of literary salon, attractive in the highest de- 
gree to all who came within its influence. 

She never spoke of her sufferings, indeed she 
seldom spoke of herself at all, so interested was 
she in others. Her radiant spirit made all who 
approached her feel that they were in the pres- 
ence of health, not illness. 

Many who were in sorrow sought her, because 
nowhere else could they find such tender sym- 
pathy and such reinforcement of hope. She 
took pains to find out and to remember all who 

[52] 



BEAUTY FOR ALL 

were sick within the circle of her acquaintance, 
made daily inquiries concerning them, and 
planned to get their wants looked after, or, if 
nothing else was needed, to have a handful of 
flowers sent to each. 

Her bedside was the brightest spot in the 
the neighborhood. Few entered her presence 
without getting from her some high and inspir- 
ing thought, and nobody left it without carry- 
ing away something of her courage and cheer. 
Children danced with joy at being allowed to 
visit her, her greeting was always so bright, and 
she was so sure to have a flower or bit of confec- 
tion, an orange or a story for them. 

I always think of her as possessed of great 
beauty. Now, after twenty years, I ask why, 
and I know the true answer is, Her beauty was 
of the mind and heart. True, she had luxuriant 
hair and fine eyes, and features of pleasing out- 
line; but in these respects hundreds of others 
were her equals. Her superiority was of the 
soul. The grace and charm within, shining out, 
refined, ennobled and glorified her face, and 
made everybody think of her as extraordinarily 
beautiful. 

It has been said that lovelines is only the out- 
side of love. Certain it is that love in the heart 
has a magic power to make the face lovely. 
Where is the boy or the man who loves his 
mother as a son should, who does not think her 

[53] 



RICH AND YOUNG 



1Relid(on 

aea 

Seautfftei: 



beautiful? I suppose the real reason why we 
always picture the angels in heaven as beautiful, 
is because we think of them as loving and good. 

True religion is a great beautifier of the face, 
because it creates love and trust in the soul. 
False religion makes faces hard, gloomy, ugly, 
because it creates fear in the soul. 

There is a sign in Boston which someone has 
said might well be placed over the doors of the 
churches : " Wrinkles and frowns removed here." 
This is exactly what a church is for. A true 
church removes wrinkles and frowns by creat- 
ing a heart loving and at peace. 

Pity and kindness are great beautifiers. Hope 
is a magical beautifier. Courage tends to mould 
the features into lines of high dignity and 
charm. Faith, trust and reverence are all won- 
derful transformers of the countenance, because 
they transform the soul. If we carry our bur- 
dens and cares and sins to God and let him lift 
them from our hearts and consciences, the joy 
that comes cannot fail to show itself in our 
looks. We read of Moses, that when he had 
been up onto the mountain with God and came 
down, his face was shining. We read the same 
of Jesus. Do not all those who really live near 
to God, have shining faces .f* 

Sometimes you go to a photographer and sit 
for a picture. You want it to be a representa- 

[64] 



BEAUTY FOR ALL 

tion not of your ugliest but of your most at- B |)bOtO' 
tractive self. What does the photographer do ? Q^^P^ Ot 
Does he make a negative and then print impres- 
sions immediately from that? Not so. He does 
what he calls " touching up " the negative, 
before he prints from it. Very likely in this 
process he may take out strength lines, charac- 
ter lines, if he be a bad artist. But if he is a 
good artist — a true artist — ^he takes out only 
ugliness lines. He notes those lines and wrin- 
kles and expressions that have been put into 
your face by passion, by worry, by anxiety, by 
selfishness, by unkindness, by indulgence of your 
lower appetites ; and these he rubs out — as much 
as he can — thus giving you as far as possible 
a picture of your better self — of your face un- 
marred by your soul's deformities. 

But how very serious is the thought that your 
soul is all the while writing its character and 
its history on the very flesh and bones of your 
face! The artist can touch up his negative: 
can he touch up your character.? It is some- 
thing to get the physical marks of passion, 
greed, worry, impatience, uncharitableness out 
of your photograph. But how much better if 
you can keep the ugly passions themselves out 
of your souls ! 

This is the great matter of human concern 
in this world. Here is the supreme task of hu- 
man life. We must create for ourselves Beau- 
tiful Souls. 

[65] 



Ill 

PERPETUAL YOUTH FOR ALL 



" While we converse with what is above us, 
we do not grow old, but grow young." 

RALPH WALDO EMEESON. 

" Love works the miracle of Youth ; 
Love speaks the oracle of Truth ; 

And they who prove 

The strength of love 
Grow younger and more young." 

EDWAED EVEEETT HALE. 

" The deeper I drink of the cup of life, the 
sweeter it grows." 

JULIA WAED HOWE. 



PERPETUAL YOUTH FOR ALL 

One of the great, alluring dreams of the past ^be Dream 
has been that of the possibility of attaining to ^^ Pcrpet* 
Perpetual Youth. Thousands have asked 
eagerly : Is there not somewhere a magical foun- 
tain, from bathing in whose waters men and 
women may emerge young forever, — freed 
from the dread of old age and the doom of 
death? Multitudes of adventurers besides Ponce 
de Leon have searched ardently for such a 
fountain. 

Has the dream been only an illusion? Must 
the search be forever unrealized? Quite the 
contrary. There is a Fountain of Perpetual 
Youth ; and whosoever will may find it. But it 
is not in any far off Florida. It is not in the 
physical or external world at all. It is within 
man: it is in your soul and mine. 

The human soul is made for youth, not for 
age. Age pertains to the body ; the soul should 
defy it. 

If the soul be kept young as it ought to be, 
what we call old age — that is, age of the body 
— is not to be dreaded ; it is part of the wise 
order of nature, and is as beautiful in its place 
as the evening of the day or the harvest time of 
the year. Indeed it is life's evening ; it is life's 
autumn; and if one would not wish for days 
without late afternoon hours and sunsets, or for 

[59] 



dbarma 



RICH AND YOUNG 

years without Octobers, why should one think 
that human life would be more desirable if it 
did not include old age? 

%itc*B True, youth is usually thought of as the time 

uari^ing ^^ |-£g which is possessed of the greatest charm. 

And, in a sense, rightly. If we are thinking 
only of physical charm doubtless we must go for 
that to childhood, youth, or the earlier years of 
manhood and womanhood. Childhood may be 
very truly thought of as the budding time of 
life; youth and young manhood and woman- 
hood as the blossoming time; and more mature 
life, reaching on to old age, as the fruit-bearing 
season. 

There is one beauty of the bud, another of 
the full blossom and another of the fruit. 

The charm of childhood is very great. 
Poets will never cease to sing it; painters will 
never tire of portraying it on canvas. 

The charm of opening manhood and woman- 
hood is as great, though it is different. The 
young man says, "Why cannot I always re- 
main young .^ " The young woman says, "Why 
should I pass on from these sweet years, and 
my charms fade, and wrinkles creep into my 
face.'' " But there is also a charm, an exceed- 
ing beauty, of old age. Generally it has little 
to do with the body, though we all know faces 
of old men and women that are striking in 
their attractiveness, — faces that win and draw 

[60] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

us as few younger faces do. Usually, however, 
the beauty of age is not primarily physical, 
but better, it is intellectual, moral, spiritual. 

Bodily beauty and grace are likely to come 
early, if they come at all; and they are evan- 
escent. Beauty of soul and graces of spirit 
are longer in reaching their development; but 
once in existence they continue; and the power 
of their fascination is far greater, as well as 
more lasting, than mere physical beauty can 
ever exert. 

It is not strange that physical beauty is ad- XTbe 
mired. The fair face of the child is a fit ob- ^Beauts 
ject of admiration. So is the fine form of man iiNogta 
or woman, when, Apollo-like, or Diana-like, it gj^^g 
represents the highest perfection of the human 
body. It is not strange that these forms of 
beauty are oftenest sung by poets; the impulse 
comes to men sooner to sing of what lies on the 
surface than to sing of what is deeper. It is 
not strange that these are oftenest painted ; it is 
easier to paint the body than the soul. But 
sometime poets and painters will arrive to whom 
the soul will mean something so great and so 
divine, that they will be able to make men see 
in old age a possible beauty and glory trans- 
scending anything that immature years can 
know. 

There is no denying that it is commonly re- 
garded as a misfortune to grow old. About the 

[61] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

only class of persons that desire to be much 
older than they are, is children. The girl of 
eight wants to be twelve, and the girl of twelve 
wants to be old enough to put on long dresses 
and be thought a woman. The small boy wants 
nothing so much as to grow. If he is a younger 
brother, his ideal is to be as big and as old as 
his older brother. If you call him a year 
younger than he is, he feels grievously hurt. 
If you want to make a boy of ten your enemy 
call him little. As a rule all boys desire to be 
men more than almost anything else in the 
world. 

tlbe But when boys and girls once get to be men 

^VV^OUCb and women, a change comes. Now, instead of 
hastening the wheels of time, they would like to 
put brakes on them. Few ev^its in life are 
more startling to the average man or woman 
than the discovery of the first grey hair. 

The approach of old age is not a light mat- 
ter; as life itself is not a light matter. To be 
old is to have one's earthly years largely behind 
one. It is to have the larger part of one's 
earthly life work done. This must be a serious 
thought to every earnest mind. It need not 
necessarily, however, be a sad thought. The 
only occasion for sadness is the consciousness 
of unfaithfulness, the knowledge that one might 
have spent his years more wisely and done his 
work in life better. If I set myself a task to do 

[62] 



of Bse 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

in my study, I am not sorry when it draws near 
completion. If you set yourself a task in your 
store or office or home, you are not sad when 
you find your work nearing the end. Why then 
should we despond when we see the life-long task 
which God has given us to do on earth, drawing 
toward its close? The dread of old age that 
exists in very many minds is greatly to be depre- 
cated. Many persons seem to think of age as 
necessarily a dreary, joyless period, which must 
be endured when it arrives, but which none can 
look forward to without regret and apprehen- 
sion. Thus an old English bard chants mourn- 
fuUy, 

" Old age is dark and unlovely " ; 
and the author of the Old Testament book of 
Ecclesiastes calls old age " the evil days," when 
we shall have " no pleasure in them." 

One of our minor American poets, James TilQlbltCOml) 
Whit comb Riley, who usually writes cheerfully, IRUeiJ 
gives us these gloomy lines about old age : 

*' The biting wild winds whistle through 
Our tattered hopes, when age comes on. 

Oh, tide of raptures long withdrawn. 
Flow back in summer floods, and fling 
Here at our feet our childhood sweet 
And all the songs we used to sing: 
Old loves, old friends, all dead and gone — 

[63] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

Our old faith lost — when age comes on! 
Poor hearts! have not we anything 
But longings left, when age comes on?" 

Is this a true way of looking at old age? I 
cannot for a moment think it is. 

Of course old age may be unhappy; but so 
may middle life; and so may youth and child- 
hood. I believe there is no more necessity for 
old age being unhappy, than for any other 
period of life being so. I doubt whether, as a 
matter of fact, the old, at least in civilized lands, 
are not quite as happy as the middle aged or 
the young. Possibly they may not have quite 
so many or quite so keen physical pleasures; 
but are these not fully made up for by the 
higher pleasures of the mind and the heart? 

BDvattsB If old age has certain disadvantages, it has 

tnQCQ Of also certain distinct advantages and certain very 

" real compensations. 

As we go on in life, as a rule the battle grows 
a little less strenuous. That is an advantage. 

We do not run so hotly after little things, 
and so we have more time. That is a gain. 

Our tastes are apt to grow simpler. That also 
is a gain. 

The superficial things, of money, and dress, 
and notoriety, and places in society, and the like, 
which men and women are apt to chase so 
eagerly after in earlier life, tend to lose a little 

[64] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

of their importance in our eyes, and the deeper 
things which give life its real satisfactions and 
its lasting joys, tend to rise into a little greater 
prominence in our thoughts. This change is a 
substantial good. 

We get better acquainted with ourselves as 
the years go on : we find out what we can do and 
what we cannot. Thus we are saved some mis- 
takes. It becomes easier to become reconciled 
to ourselves, and to bear with our own short- 
comings. 

We get larger experience of life, and of 
men, and that makes us, or ought to make us (I 
think usually it does) more just and kindly in 
our judgments of others, and a little more char- 
itable and patient in view of their shortcomings. 

It is a little easier to meet disappointments 
and troubles than it was earlier in life, because 
we have learned to take larger views. We have 
learned that though "weeping may endure for 
a night, joy cometh in the morning." By a 
thousand experiences we have found that 

" the darkest day. 
Live till tomorrow, will have passed away.'* 

And so we a little more easily rise above troubles 
and disappointments into the serener air of 
peace. 

At the same time life itself grows richer 
by reason of the added harvests of reading and 

[65] 



l^icber 



RICH AND YOUNG 

%ifc thought and observation and experience which 

J^^^?^^*^^ every additional year of life brings. We have a 

larger outlook over the world, and so we under- 
stand better the news that comes to us of great 
world movements. We have a more comprehen- 
sive outlook over the past, and so history has 
larger meanings for us. 

If when we get on in years we are unable ta 
walk quite so fast or so far as once we could, 
the electrical car and the automobile, which 
have come to us since we were young, do much 
to take the place of nimble feet. If our eyes 
tend to lose a little of their excellence of vision, 
the oculist and optician quickly make them al- 
most as good as new. 

Perhaps the saddest experience connected 
with old age, or with feeling one's self drawing 
on toward it, is the growing absence of dear ones 
from our side, — the falling of one and another 
and another on the road, of those who have long 
kept companionship with us. But as the old 
friends go, we are not left alone ; new ones, pre- 
cious new ones, come. Nor are the old lost; 
they live with us still in our thoughts and our 
love ; while hope tells us of a reunion a little way 
on, which will make them all ours again forever. 
Such are some of the compensations of old 
age. Such are some of the things which we 
should remember whenever we are tempted to 
think of the afternoon or evening of life as a 
time to be regretted. 

[66] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

One of the mistakes of tenest made about old Bge not a 
age, is thinking of it as a thing wholly of years, ^btnfl Ot 
The truth is, real old age is a thing much more ^ 
of the mind and heart than of time. When age 
is allowed to invade the soul, then comes life's 
tragedy. 

And it has to be confessed that numerous such 
tragedies confront us. While many men and 
women are young at eighty, many are old at 
thirty. Who does not know persons of thirty 
and under who are already "disillusioned," as 
they say; that is, to whom life has lost all its 
high meanings and therefore its joy? Their 
world, instead of being a wonder, a delight, a 
splendid mystery, a temple of God, is banal and 
empty ! 

The book of Ecclesiastes draws for us the 
picture of an old king, — not necessarily old in 
years, but with a soul aged, wrinkled, and joy- 
less, because he had lived only for selfish pleas- 
ures and for the surface things of human life! 
His constant refrain is 

" Vanity of vanities ! all is vanity ! " 
He tells his story : 

*' I builded me houses ; 
' I planted me vineyards; 

I made me pools of water; 

I got me servants and maidens ; 

I gathered me also silver and gold. 

[67] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

So I was great, and increased more than 
all who were before me in Jerusalem. 

Then I looked on all the works that my 
hands had wrought, 

And behold, there was no profit under the 
sun; 

All is vanity and vexation of spirit." 

Involuntarily we exclaim, Poor, withered, 
crippled, aged heart! how pitiful is your case! 

Walter Bagehot, in writing of Lady Mary 
Wortley Montagu, sketches for us the mental 
interior of a blase woman of fashion : " Society 
is good," she writes, " but I have seen society. 
What is the use of talking or of hearing bright 
things? I have done both till I am tired of do- 
ing either. I have laughed until I have no wish 
to laugh again, and made others laugh until I 
have hated them for being such fools." Con- 
tinues Bagehot: "What is left to such people.'* 
They have exhausted all the springs that are in 
sight, and have no inclination to bore for deeper 
ones. Among all the varieties of human charac- 
ter and condition, does the earth contain any 
other such specimen of sheer hopelessness as 
your comfortably placed men and women, whose 
one discovery is that life is not worth living? 
And their life certainly is not." 

VSibo arc Some of the really oldest persons I have ever 

^^^ known — oldest in heart — have been persons 

much under middle age. 

[68] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

As soon as the freshness and interest is gone 
out of Hfe, one is aged. 

As soon as one wants the years or the days 
to hurry by, or he begins to think and talk 
about " killing time," he is getting old. 

As soon as a man makes up his mind that the 
deepest human motive is selfishness, or that every 
man has his price, he is old; his heart is with- 
ered. 

As soon as a woman begins to suspect every- 
body's sincerity, she is old ; her soul is wrinkled, 
whatever may be the appearance of her cheek. 
I know of nothing more dreadful than such 
premature and unnatural old age as comes from 
living selfishly and on the surface of life, until 
all that is noblest and deepest has faded away 
and has come to seem an unreality. 

The man who lacks faith, whether faith in 
truth, or in justice, or in his fellow-man, or in 
himself, or in God, is aging in heart; weakness 
and decrepitude are creeping into his soul. 

There are still other marks of real old age — i^atfid Ot 
old age of the heart and mind. As soon as the 2lgc 
tender green of the grass or the gold of the dan- 
delion or the witchery of the falling snow-flake 
ceases to be a joy to one, he is aging. 

He who habitually looks backward, instead of 
forward, is old; no matter if he has seen only 
twenty years of time. 

He who is interested in nothing new, is old. 

[69] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

He who sees Eden in the past, and who 
thinks the former times were better than these, 
is old. 

He who distrusts the young, and thinks the 
great men are all dying oflP, with none to take 
their place, is old. 

He who is timid and afraid to undertake new 
enterprises, is old. 

The pessimist is old. The skeptic and the 
cynic are old. The habitual fault-finder and 
complainer is old. 

The man or woman or child who looks habit- 
ually on the dark side of things, and always 
thinks it is going to rain or snow or storm, is 
old. 

The person, no matter how young he may be 
in years, who has made up his mind that he is 
unlucky, and that when his bread and butter 
falls on the floor it always falls butter side 
down, is already old. 

He who does not care for children is old. He 
to whom the laughter of children is not music, 
is old. If a man has children and does not play 
with them and enjoy the play, he is old, and 
may well ask himself, "Am I really their father? 
Am I not their grand-father ? " 

He who does not enjoy humor, and whose 
face seldom smiles, is old. 

He who runs to business, without time to kiss 
his wife or child, or who thinks about his busi- 

[10] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

ness all day Sunday when he ought to be think- 
ing about things that will give his tired soul 
rest and peace, is fast growing old. 

He who never has time to stop and hear a bird 
sing, or to admire a sweet flower, is old. 

He to whom a dollar is of more value than an 
uplifting thought, is very old and very poor. 

Thus we see that old age of the mind and 
heart- — the only kind that any of us need much 
dread — has little to do with years. It is well 
nigh as likely to come at forty or thirty or 
twenty, as at seventy or eighty. In comparison 
with this kind of old age how little is to be 
feared the aging of the body ! For in the oldest 
body may dwell the youngest spirit. 

Another serious mistake often made regard- IlCbfevCa 
ing old age — the old age of years I mean — is to UJf^^^^^ 
think of it as necessarily an idle or inactive or 
unproductive period in life. The truth is, 
some of the very best work of the world has been 
done and is being done to-day by persons far on 
in years. Take away from history the great 
achievements of men above sixty, or seventy, or 
eighty, and the world would suffer an irrepar- 
able loss. Writes Longfellow, in his Morituri 
Salutamus, a poem composed in his old age: 

" Cato learned Greek at eighty ; Sophocles 
Wrote his grand Aedipus, and Simonides 
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers 

[71] 



®I& Bge 



RICH AND YOUNG 

When each had numbered more than four 
score years. 

And Theophrastus at four score and ten, 

Had but begun his Characters of Men; 

Chaucer, at Woodstock, with the nightin- 
gales. 

At sixty wrote his Canterbury Tales ; 

Goethe, at Wiemar, toiling to the last. 

Completed Faust when eighty years were 
passed." 

This is scarcely a beginning of the long and 
splendid list of achievements of men far on in 
life. 

The artistic and literary genius of Michael 
Angelo was little if at all dimmed at the age of 
eighty-three, as is shown by the exquisite son- 
nets, the fine architectural drawings and the 
noble models for sculpture produced by him at 
that advanced age. 

Linnaeus was still a devoted botanist at 
seventy-seven, and exclaimed, "I am happier in 
my work than the king of Persia ! " Humboldt 
kept young to ninety in scientific studies and 
publishing the results of his scientific investi- 
gations. 

©laDstone Gladstone was holding the office of Prime 

atBiabtSs Minister of Great Britain at eighty-three, and 
fighting one of the most strenuous political bat- 
tles of his life, that over Irish Home Rule ; and 

[72] 



Seven 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

at eighty-seven he was addressing great meet- 
ings all up and down England to arouse public 
sentiment in favor of the suffering Armenians. 

At seventy-five Disraeli was Prime Minister, 
and full of the cares of empire ; and at the same 
time he was writing another of his remarkable 
novels. 

Von Moltke was Commander in Chief of the 
German army, and planned the great campaign 
against France which ended in Sedan, when he 
was over seventy. 

In the war carried on by the British against 
the Boers in South Africa (1899-1902), when 
younger generals had failed again and again, 
and the situation was getting critical in the ex- 
treme, General Roberts, nearly seventy, was 
put in command, with the result that very soon 
he straightened out the tangles, averted the 
threatened calamities, and led the British to vic- 
tory. 

Somebody once asked Lord Palmerston the 
question : " When is a man in his prime ? " The 
great Premier replied, " At about seventy-nine. 
I am past my prime, I am just eighty." 

Pope Leo XIII carried responsibilities as 
heavy as those of any king or emperor or presi- 
dent of a great nation, and yet he discharged 
them with remarkable ability and vigor until 
beyond ninety. 

Sir Moses Montefiore, the distinguished Jew- 

[73] 



tTbree 



RICH AND YOUNG 

ish philanthropist, carried on his works of 
beneficence almost to the time of his death at 
the great age of one hundred and one, and made 
the last of his seven notable journeys to the 
Orient in the interest of the Jewish people when 
he was nearly ninety. 

James Martineau continued his literary pro- 
ductivity until beyond ninety, and gave to the 
world his three greatest books after he was 
eighty. 

mudO at Victor Hugo continued to write on with won- 

?i^5« * derful freshness and power almost to the time 

of his death at eighty-three, and declared at 
the last, "I have not yet given expression to a 
hundredth part of what is in me." 

Tennyson gave to the world his exquisite 
"Crossing the Bar" at eighty. 

Browning wrote his Reverie and Epilogue 
to Asolando, two of his very finest short poems, 
only shortly before his death at seventy-seven. 

Whittier and Oliver Wendell Holmes both 
kept their singing gifts little if at all impaired 
to the age of eighty-four. 

William Cullen Bryant retained his vigor as 
a writer and his great activity in public service, 
to the end of his long life. No important pubhc 
occasion was complete without his presence and 
his word. When he died he was probably the 
most honored and the most conspicuous citizen 
of New York. Indeed his death was occasioned 

[74] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

by a sunstroke received while making a public 
address at the unveiling of a statue in Central 
Park at the age of eighty-four. 

John Adams was inaugurated President of 
the United States at sixty-two, Andrew Jackson 
at the same age, Buchanan at sixty-six and 
General Harrison at sixty-eight. 

Marshall served as Chief Justice of the 
United States until he was eighty-five, and 
Taney until he was eighty-seven. 

At eighty, John Quincy Adams, "the old 
man eloquent," was the conscience of the 
United States House of Representatives and 
by far its most conspicuous and commanding 
character. 

At seventy-eight George F. Hoar was the 
greatest intellectual and moral force in the 
United States Senate. 

At eighty-five and beyond, Edward Everett 2)t^l)aleat 
Hale was Chaplain of the United States Senate, ^iQbt^^ 
a writer wielding a pen prolific and powerful * 
beyond almost any other in the nation, and a 
leader in nearly every great movement for re- 
form and for educational, social and religious 
progress in the country. 

Dr. H. W. Furness of Philadelphia was pas- 
tor of the First Unitarian Church of that city 
for fifty years. He went on publishing books 
up to the age of eighty-three, and at eighty- 
eight was preaching with all the grace and elo- 

[75] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

quence that had given him distinction half a 
century earlier. 

Dr. Robert Colly er was an active pastor 
until far beyond eighty, with brain as clear and 
heart as warm as in youth, and eagerly sought 
for as a speaker on all kinds of important pub- 
lic occasions near and far. 

Dr. Henson was called to the pastorate of 
the large Tremont Temple Baptist Church in 
Boston when he was seventy-two, because no 
younger man could be found who seemed able 
to fill the important place. 

Dr. James B. Angell filled the arduous and 
responsible position of president of the great 
University of Michigan, with its more than four 
thousand students, until his eightieth year, the 
Board of Regents of the University refusing to 
accept his resignation earlier. 

Until beyond the age of eighty-five Dr. Gold- 
win Smith of Toronto continued to be one of 
the most active writers and public men in Can- 
ada, as he was the most distinguished and in- 
fluential. 

At seventy William DeMorgan began a 
wholly new literary career, that of a novelist, 
and achieved distinction in it. 

At much past eighty. Thomas Wentwortii 
Higginson was publishing new books, and writ- 
ing and speaking with a charm which no man 
of his generation could excel. 

[76] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 



At far beyond eighty Count Tolstoy was 
writing with vigor, penetration and power sur- 
passed by no author of modern Europe. 

General William Booth, the head of the Sal- 
vation Army, continued until beyond eighty to 
tour about the world with as much spirit and 
to push forward the work of the Army in all 
lands with as much energy as he had shown 
thirty years earlier. 

Nor are achievements in advanced age con- 
fined to men. Women have their full part. 

Queen Victoria carried the heavy responsibil- 
ities of her high position until the age of 
eighty-two. 

Mary Somerville published her able and val- 
uable work on Molecular and Microscopical 
Science at the age of eighty-nine. 

The Baroness Burdett-Coutts continued her 
active and far-reaching work in charities and 
philanthropy until almost the time of her death 
at the age of ninety-three. 

The other day I read of a lady of wealth and 
social position in Paris who at eighty-two 
learned Spanish in order to increase her useful- 
ness in prison work, and who now at ninety-six 
is still actively interested in prison reform and 
other movements of public beneficence. 

Mrs. Lucretia Mott continued to be one of 
the most indefatigable, unselfish and influential 
workers in America in behalf of temperance, 

[77] 



ments ot 
Women 



RICH AND YOUNG 

the elevation of woman and the cause of univer- 
sal peace, up almost to the end of her life at 
eighty-seven. 

At seventy-five, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore was 
still the unrivalled queen of the American ly- 
ceum platform, enjoying a degree of popularity 
and wielding a power little if any less than at 
the age of fifty. 

Miss Susan B. Anthony and Mrs. Elizabeth 
Cady Stanton carried on with unabated vigor 
their powerful advocacy of the cause of equal 
rights for women, the former to the age of 
eighty-four and the latter to the age of eighty- 
seven. 

afSXB* Mrs. Julia Ward Howe maintained up to 

Slowe ninety, with hardly any abatement, her k-ien in- 

terest in the progress of the world and her 
great literary and philanthropic activity. 
Writing of her at that advanced age, Florence 
Painter said in Putnam's magazine, "Mrs. 
Howe is to-day president of the New England 
Women's Club, as she has been for thirty-three 
years ; she is also president of the Boston 
Authors' Club ; she is president emerita of the 
Circolo Italiano, and of the State Federation of 
Women's Clubs ; she is vice-president emerita of 
the National Federation of Women's Clubs ; and 
she continues to be an interested member of the 
Papeterie of Newport, the Wintergreen Club, 
and other organizations. Within the past year 

[78] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

she has attended and spoken at hearings on 
Woman's Suffrage at the Massachusetts State 
House. In a single week she has given three 
public addresses on technical matters and to 
bodies of experts, one before the Religious Edu- 
cation Association, another in the Italian lan- 
guage before the Circolo Italiano." What a 
record is this for a woman of four-score and 
ten! 

In the face of such examples as all these, — 
and scores and hundreds of others might be 
cited, — how shallow seems the thought that at 
seventy or sixty or earlier, life's work is neces- 
sarily over, and that the period beyond is only 
a time for inactivity, gloom, and living upon 
the achievements and memories of the past! 

Age is largely a matter of psychology. We XlbC 
are old as soon as we think we are, and no PsBCbOl* 
sooner. 

Age is a relative term. The point in life at 
which people begin to regard themselves old is 
largely a matter of custom. If a foolish custom 
fixes the time of the coming on of old age as at 
seventy or sixty or even fifty, the majority of 
people are likely, simply because others do so, 
weakly and foolishly to consent, creep into a 
corner, and regard their active years as over. 
Thus one-third of life, and what should be the 
best third, is lost. We want a new psychology 
which will make men and women everywhere 

[79] 



odc of Bge 



RICH AND YOUNG 



ITncreaelng 
Xengtb 
ot Ibuman 
Xffe 



think of old age as beginning at least twenty or 
thirty years later than they have been imagin- 
ing. 

Few utterances that have come down to us 
from the past are so much to be regretted as the 
words so often quoted from the Psalms : 
*' The days of our years are three-score years 
and ten; 

And if by reason of strength they be four- 
score years. 

Yet is their strength labor and sorrow." 

These words have had the effect virtually to 
make the whole Christian world (and of course 
the Jewish world too) accept seventy years as 
the normal term of human life, and to give the 
impression that all beyond that must be a 
period of weakness and misery. 

The science of our day shows that there is 
no ground for such a view. 

Within two or three generations the average 
length of life in civilized lands has increased 
more than a decade, and is now above forty 
years. This is only a beginning of what should 
be before us. Careful students and great sci- 
entific authorities are insisting that the average 
of life ought to rise to fifty or sixty years, if 
not considerably more, and that we ought to see 
quite as many persons living to be ninety and a 
hundred years old as we now see living to be 
seventy and eighty. 

[80] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

Professor MetchnikofF tells us that we should 
live to the age of one hundred and forty; that 
not one man in a million now completes his nor- 
mal life period; that by simple and natural liv- 
ing and by obedience to the laws of physical 
and mental health our lives may be not 
only enormously prolonged but prolonged in 
vigor and under conditions ensuring happiness 
and productivity; and that a man who dies at 
seventy is cut off in the very flower of his days. 

The belief has already been expressed that 1bappined0 
age ought not to be, and except in rare cases ^^ ®^^ ^QC 
need not be, a time of unhappiness, or even of 
less happiness than earlier periods of life. In- 
deed, if the years preceding have been properly 
spent, ought not old age to be the most enjoy- 
able period of all.? 

Dr. Channing, being asked what he thought 
the happiest time of life, replied, "About sixty." 
He had just passed his sixtieth birthday. 

The Rev. Rush R. Shippen, attending a Na- 
tional Unitarian Conference at Atlantic City, 
N. J., when nearly eighty, gave an address not 
only of great power, but filled with a spirit of 
hopefulness and enthusiasm which marked him 
as one of the youngest men in spirit in the Con- 
ference. One of his most emphatic declarations 
was, that life had grown brighter to him as he 
had advanced, and that his latest years had been 
found his happiest. 

[81] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

This fine youthfulness of spirit continued 
right on. At the age of eighty-two he wrote to 
a friend on New Year's Day: "For every new 
year my favorite greeting is St. Paul's trumpet 
call, 'Forgetting those things which are be- 
hind, and reaching forth unto those things 
which are before, I press toward the mark.' 
Some things we would not and cannot forget. 
Red letter days, dear friends and friendships, 
old time memories, which forever enrich and 
sweeten life, are precious treasures that death 
cannot touch nor the ground bury. But no 
dead past should clog or hinder our living ad- 
vance. Neither discouraged by past failure, 
nor satisfied with past success, resolutely let us 
press forward, making each new day better 
than any that are gone. Upon every new morn- 
ing let us greet the rising sun saying, 'This is 
the day which the Lord hath made; we will re- 
joice and be glad in it.' This unfinished planet, 
with fertile valleys and prairies, rich mines of 
hidden wealth and vast forests of material for 
use and beauty, the good Lord has given to his 
children to cultivate, develop and perfect, 
changing thorn and brier to myrtle and rose, 
and turning the wilderness to a garden of God, 
and in doing this to be divinely educated. For 
one who uses it nobly, doing his best, what a 
grand school for culture! what a divine temple 
for worship of the Most High ! what a delight- 

[82] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 



ful home of living brotherhood in preparation 
for that better home beyond, where no tears for 
parting come! So let us with faith, hope and 
charity, with loving service to God and man, 

- 'Ring out the old. Ring in the new.' " 

Dr. James Freeman Clark died at the age of 
seventy-eight. His biographer says of him: 
*'To the end of his life he continued to have the 
expectant outlook of youth. He was always 
working, studying, producing — enjoying na- 
ture, art, books, people. He climbed moun- 
tains, sailed, rowed, sat up nights on the roof 
of his house to observe the stars. He talked 
with theologians, he played with children. He 
liked to go on journeys, but was apt to return 
a day or two before the time set, entering the 
house with a radiant air of satisfaction at find- 
ing himself once more in his own home." In 
one of his latest sermons he wrote: "It is a bles- 
sed thing that the longer we live, the more 
beautiful the world becomes, the more rich and 
precious life seems. It is the young who are 
the oftenest tired of life. As we live on, we 
seem to grow younger, not older." 

Dr. Robert Collyer said of himself at sev- 
enty-eight: — "My life grows sweeter as the 
years come and go." At his eightieth birthday 
celebration his friend, John W. Chadwick, read 
a poem containing these verses: 

[83] 



^freeman 
dlaclte and 
IRobcrt 



RICH AND YOUNG 

" And still the years, the blessed years, 
Soft stooping from above, 
Have poured the treasures of their grace, 
The sweetness of their love. 

Still happy work and happy play 
Have kept you strong and glad, 

Till half we dream these crowning years 
The best of all you've had. 

Don't think of going, Robert, yet, 

Stay with us still awhile; 
We need the glory of your laugh. 
The sweetness of your smile." 

Robert Ingersoll said of Collyer: "He has a 
brain full of the dawn; the head of a philoso- 
pher ; the imagination of a poet, and the sincere 
heart of a child." This was as true of him in 
old age as in earlier life. Why then should not 
his life have grown sweeter with the years.? 

Dr. Joseph Priestley, when he was young, 
preached that old age was the happiest time of 
life; and when he was himself eighty he wrote, 
"I have found it so." 

Professor John Torrey, one of the most dis- 
tinguished botanists of the United States, who 
lived to old age, a little while before his death 
was returning from Florida where he had been 
for his health, when he was rallied for having 
gone to seek Ponce de Leon's Fountain of 
Youth. "No," he replied, "I have not been 

[84] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

seeking the Fountain of Youth; but the Foun- 
tain of Old Age. For the longer I live the 
more I find myself enjoying life." 

When Dr. Dwight resigned the Presidency fprcslDcttt 
of Yale University in the year 1899, at the age H)Wifll)t 
of seventy, he gave utterance to these words: 

"I lay down my office not because I am old. 
Seventy is not old; but it is the end of the 
summer term, and vacation time has come. My 
theory of life has been this: I believe life was 
made as much for one period as another, child- 
hood, prime, and later life; and every man 
should prepare himself for the late afternoon 
hour, so that he may grow happier to the last. 
I look forward to coming years of greater hap- 
piness than I have ever known." 

A lady in advanced life recently said of her- 
self : "Although more than eighty-three years 
of age, I can truthfully say that I am very 
happy. It is true that I have lost many of 
those dearest to me; but they are waiting for 
me in another world. I can still read the works 
of great writers. I find my French and my 
Latin as easy as in my early years. I employ 
my needle to some extent in useful work. I was 
never more keenly alive to the beauties of na- 
ture, and the charms of the changing seasons. 
It is delightful to receive the loving attentions 
of my children and my friends. I watch the de- 
velopment of my grand-children with intense 

[85] 



RICH AND YOUNG 



•QmblttCec, 

anD 
Bmereon 



gratification. I constantly strive to maintain 
my interest in those around me, and in the 
affairs of the great world outside. To one who 
does this, and whose religion is not a mere name, 
but a vital reality, old age may be the crown- 
ing happiness of life." 

1 Said Mrs. Howe when far past eighty: "The 
deeper I drink of the cup of life, the sweeter it 
grows, — ^the sugar all at the bottom!" At 
ninety-one she said: "My health is perfect. I 
feel full of youth." She spent a part of the 
morning of her ninety-first birthday reading 
Greek, and a part pleading before a Boston 
Commission for pure milk for babies. Her 
daughter, Mrs. Richards, wrote of her : "In her 
heart is changeless spring." 

Whittier wrote his last poem at the age of 
eighty-four, only a few weeks before his death. 
It was addressed to his life-long friend, Oliver 
Wendell Holmes, who was only two years his 
junior. In the poem we find these lines, which 
picture well the old age of both men : 

*' Far off, and faint as echoes of a dream, 
The songs of boyhood seem, 
Yet on our autumn boughs, unflown with 
spring. 
The evening thrushes sing." 

Emerson met his old age as cheerfully and 
happily as he had met his earlier life, seeing in 

[86] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 



it something just as good, 
end we hear him chant: 



When Hearing the 



" A little while 
Still plan and smile. 
As the bird trims her to the gale, 
I trim myself to the storms of time; 
I man the rudder, reef the sail, 
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime: 
Lowly, faithful, banish fear, 
Right onward drive unharmed; 
The port, well worth the cruise, is near. 
And every wave is charmed." 

Wrote George Macdonald: 

"Why should not a man be happy when he 
is growing old, so long as his faith strength- 
ens the feeble knees which chiefly suffer in the 
process of going down hill? True, the fever 
heat is over, and the oil burns more slowly in 
the lamp of life; but if there is less fervor, 
there is more pervading warmth ; if less of fire, 
more of sunshine; there is less smoke and more 
light. Verily, youth is good, but old age bet- 
ter — ^to the man who forsakes not his youth 
when his youth forsakes him." 

The lesson which we all need to learn is, that 
old age is largely what we make it. Even 
when it is darkened by illness and pain, the 
probability is that in a majority of cases these 
have been brought on to a greater or less degree 



Sowfitfl 

and 

'Reaping 



RICH AND YOUNG 

by the sufferer's own conduct — by his own vio- 
lations of the laws of life and health. 

A happy old age is not a mere accident. It 
is also true that seldom is an unhappy old 
age an accident. The law is, "Whatsoever a 
man soweth, that shall he also reap," — in this 
world as truly as in the next. Even illness and 
pain cannot prevent a large measure of happi- 
ness in old age if the conditions of the soul have 
been kept right. Some of the sunniest and se- 
renest lives are those into which great bodily 
suffering has come. 

As already urged, the growing old process is 
something which should appertain mainly if not 
wholly to the body, and only to a very limited 
extent if at all to the soul. Of course my body 
must in time become worn out, — it was only 
designed for a limited amount of service. When 
that service has been rendered I shall lay it aside 
as a garment no longer required. But my body 
is not m.y Self. 

2ln Emerson on the seventy-seventh anniversary 

Bncient of his birth received a letter from Professor 

•ClpaniSbaD ^^x Miiller of Oxford, the English translator 
of many of the Sacred Books of the East, 
bringing birthday greetings and containing a 
striking passage from an ancient Upanishad 
of India, recently discovered. The passage was 
as follows: 

"Old age and decay lay hold of the body, the 

[88] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

senses, the memory, the mind, but never of the 
Self, the Looker-on. The Self never grows 
tired: only the body grows tired of supporting 
the Self. The Self never grows blind: only the 
windows of the senses become darkened with 
dust and rain. The Self never forgets : only the 
inscriptions on the memory fade, and it is well 
that much should be forgotten. The Self never 
errs. The many wheels of our watches grow 
rusty, but we look up at the eternal dial in the 
heavens above which remains right forever." 

Wrote grand old Dr. Guthrie, of Scotland: 
"Men say I am growing old, because my hair is 
silvered, and there are crow-feet upon my fore- 
head, and my step is not so firm as it used to be. 
But they are mistaken. That is not me. The 
brow is wrinkled ; but the brow is not me. This 
is only the house in which I live. I am young, 
younger now than I ever was before." 

Dr. Charles G. Ames, of Boston, when past 5)t. %mC3 
eighty wrote as follows in a birthday letter to on ©l& Bge 
an aged lady parishioner : 

"You and I know better than to count these 
swift flying years for much more than the in- 
fancy of our existence, and we do not care to 
have our friends speak of us as 'aged people.' 
But we thank the Heavenly Father for giving 
us so fair a chance to make a beginning and to 
live on this particular planet at this particular 
time. What a wonderful history has been en- 

[89] 



RICH AND YOUNG 



IPenDennfs 
anO tbe 
1fumbol&t6 



acted before our eyes! What wonderful people 
we have known! What rich opportunities have 
been ours, conjugating the verb to be through 
all its moods and tenses! For you, dear sister, 
I can wish nothing less and nothing more than 
a starlit evening to our earthly day, and a glad 
awakening in the morning that knows no 
night." 

If the human soul is to live forever, how can 
it be possible but that God intends it to be al- 
ways young, in this world as long as we re- 
main here, as well as beyond the grave? 

As we have seen, some of the youngest people 
are men and women whose hair is white with the 
snows of many winters, but there is eternal sum- 
mer in their hearts. If people lived as they 
ought, would they not always grow younger in 
spirit as they grow older in years? 

Writes Philip Gilbert Hammerton: "There 
are lives, such as that of Major Pendennis, 
which only diminish in value as they advance, — 
when the man of fashion no longer is fashion- 
able, and the sportsman can no longer stride 
over the plowed field. The old age of Major 
Pendennis is surely not to be envied; but how 
rich is the old age of the Humboldts! ... I 
compare the life of the Intellectual to a long 
wedge of gold — the thin edge of it begins at 
birth, and the depth and value of it go on in- 
definitely increasing till at last comes death — 

[90] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

which stops the auriferous processes. O the 
mystery of the nameless ones who have died 
when the wedge was thin and looked so poor 
and light! O the happiness of the old men 
whose thoughts go deeper and deeper, like a 
wall that runs out into the sea !" 

In a perfect world, could growing old in 
years mean anything except increasing in wis- 
dom and experience and wealth of life? And 
what would this be but perpetual youth? In- 
deed Swedenborg says: "In heaven the angels 
are advancing continually to the springtime of 
their youth, so that the oldest angels appear the 
youngest." Must we not believe that something 
like this is true? There is much more than 
mere pleasantry in our words when we say, as 
we sometimes do, of a man who has grown old 
in years, but whose spirit has defied age : "He is 
sixty or seventy or ei^ghty years yoiing.^^ 

Sometimes we pity the old because the years 21 
remaining to them are few. But if they have Completed 
lived their lives well, serving their generation 
and keeping their souls undaunted, why should 
we pity them? Rather let us congratulate them 
that they have attained; that they have com- 
pleted their task ; gone through their full day ; 
rounded life's earthly circle; made entire what 
otherwise would have been only a fragment. 
Surely Browning's view must be the true one, 
because he contemplates life as a whole; sees 

[91] 



Xife 



RICH AND YOUNG 

God in it all, the last as well as the first; and, 
better still, finds the last the consummation and 
crown of the whole, ifow splendid and inspir- 
ing is his challenge: 

" Grow old along with me ! 
The best is yet to be, 
The last of life, for which the first was made: 
Our times are in his hand 
Who saith, 'A whole I planned. 
Youth shows but half ; trust God : see all, nor 
be afraid.' " 

Xfte Xtfte In a life lived as it ought to be I think that 

a iKivet growing old may well be thought of as resem- 

bling the progress of a river. As the river ad- 
vances toward the sea it ripples and dances less 
with laughter and song; it grows stiller and 
calmer ; but it also grows wider and deeper ; and 
it bears richer freight on its bosom. 

This is exactly what multitudes find it to be. 
Wrote Dr. Ames at eighty-two: "Some Oriental 
describes the earthly life of man as an ever 
shallowing stream that loses itself in the sand. 
To me its retrospect, aspect and prospect sug- 
gest, rather, a growing river fed by countless 
tributaries — from the sky-fed highlands of na- 
ture, tradition, history and the Hills of God — 
moving in deepening and widening volume 
towards its ocean destiny, in which it is not lost 
but found." 

[92] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 



I think that growing old ought to be like the 
climbing of a mountain. Every step takes us a 
little higher; the air becomes purer; the view 
grows wider and wider, until at last our feet 
attain the summit, the mysterious but splendid 

"mountain-top of death, 
Where we may draw diviner breath 
And see the long-lost friends we love." 

The thing to be most feared in connection 
with growing old is the possibility of an aging 
soul. Do you ask how you may avoid this? 

One thing you must do first, last and all the 
while. Refuse ever to think of old age as hav- 
ing a claim upon any part of you except your 
body. Of your soul, your Self, say resolutely 
and always: I am young, I shall always be 
young. Of course my body must grow old, be- 
cause it is of the dust. But what of that? I 
am not of the dust, I am spirit ; I am a child of 
God and of the eternities.' 

Other things also you must do. 

Learn that age is a time when men and 
women should have leisure and quiet and rest. 
You cannot keep up the pressure and pace of 
former years without disaster. Retire earlier; 
sleep nine hours now instead of eight ; take a 
nap after dinner. Do not hesitate to make 
friends with the arm chair and the rocker and 
the couch. Avoid excitements; indulge in no 
stimulants; simplify your life. 

[93] 



1bow to 
BvoiD 
(3rowfnd 
Olb in 
Splttt 



RICH AND YOUNG 

'Kecreatton Learn to play once more. You played in 

childhood and youth, and found joy in it ; if you 
would keep young in spirit, you must play in 
old age. 

Plan for yourself a reasonable amount of 
amusements and recreations. These are to the 
mind what sleep is to the body; they rest and 
refresh. As the body requires more rest in age 
than in earlier life, so does the mind. 

Your recreations should not be so strenuous 
as in your younger years, but you never needed 
recreations more than now. Choose those 
adapted to our strength, those that exhilarate 
and do not exhaust, those that that you can put 
your heart into and really enjoy, as far as pos- 
sible those that will take you out of doors, and 
as a rule those that are simple. 

Socrates in old age learned to play a musical 
instrument. 

Gladstone at eighty-seven learned to ride a 
bicycle. 

George Bancroft kept up his daily habit of 
horseback riding almost to the time of his death 
at ninety. 

(hardening Many old people, both men and women, find 

most delightful recreation, and greatly invigo- 
rated health, in gardening — in caring for flow- 
ers and fruits. 

A hard working friend of mine, over eighty 
years of age, who every day does a day's work 

[94] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

in a shop, finds the delight of his Hfe in culti- 
vating flowers, out of doors in summer and un- 
der glass in winter, in order that he may be able 
on Sundays to make beautiful the pulpit of the 
church which he loves, and on week days to give 
pleasure to sick and shut-in friends and neigh- 
bors. 

A woman of my knowledge had all her life 
wanted a flower garden, but was unable to 
gratify her desire until after she was seventy. 
Then circumstances enabled her to purchase a 
little home, with an acre of ground, and now 
she is happy from morning to night, the season 
through, among her flowers. Her smile is the 
smile of a girl. 

I have just learned of a man of means, aged 
seventy-five years, who has bought a farm and 
is going into extensive tree planting. Do you 
say the trees will never grow to any size in his 
day.? Well, if they do not, new hope and joy 
will grow in his heart, and that is more im- 
portant. 

I have a friend of seventy-three, a literary 
man, who finds his recreation in walking. He is 
an enthusiast, taking long tramps in all seasons 
of the year. There is not a public road, or lane, 
or foot path through fields or woods, or pictur- 
esque scene, or fine landscape view, within five 
miles of his home that he is not familiar with. 
He knows the haunts of rare birds, the nooks 

[95] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

where the choicest wild flowers are to be found, 
and the hills from which may be obtained the 
finest views of the sunset. His tramps give him 
health and joy, and keep him young. Fortu- 
nate is the friend invited to accompany him. 
Happiest of the happy are the boys and girls 
privileged to be his companions in nutting time. 

Oolt It is a good sign of the times that so many 

old persons are playing golf. I read yesterday 
of a "foursome" played on an English golf 
course in which the aggregate ages was three 
hundred and thirty-one years, — the competitors 
being eighty-six and eighty on one side, and 
eighty-four and eighty-one on the other. 

No one should count himself too old for golf. 
Golf is our one modern out-door sport that is 
equally good for all ages, and for both men 
and women. It seems, however, to have been 
specially invented to keep old people young. 

I know an old man who to the surprise of 
himself and his friends and to the great joy of 
his grand-children, has become (in their eyes at 
least) a wonderful story teller. In his younger 
days he never told stories, and never attempted 
to do so; he thought he had no time, and was 
sure he had no gift. But later in life, when he 
had more leisure and had become a grandfather, 
and when three or four small boys and girls 
thronged about him and climbed on his knees 
and his chair begging for stories, he began to 

[96] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

try. The grand-children were delighted, and 
the gift grew by exercise; and now the verdict 
is that there never was such a story-teller as 
grandfather. If the stories are the joy of the 
children, what have they done for him? They 
have created within him a new heart, and make 
him young again. 

The directions in which old persons may take 
recreation are numberless. One person cannot 
choose for another. But no wiser counsel can 
be given to men or women who would keep them- 
selves young, than that which insists upon re- 
creation in some form being made a part of 
their daily plan of life. 

Old age is a good time for travel, especially Unravel 
if one has been deprived of the opportunity 
earlier in life. If you have never seen Niagara, 
or the White Mountains, or the Yellowstone 
Park, or England, or Italy, or even the Holy 
Land, and can go now, what a fresh and beau- 
tiful new chapter it will add to your life! A 
man or woman of eighty, who is in good health, 
need not hesitate at all about going to Europe 
for a summer of leisurely sight-seeing. I know 
a lady who rode through Palestine on horseback 
— ten days continuously in the saddle — ^when 
she was past seventy. I have a friend past 
ninety who has just been touring in his automo- 
bile through California. 

If you would keep young, interest yourself 

[97] 



RICH AND YOUNG 



1Wew 
tntcxcsts 



J3e 



in new things, new lines of thought, new lines 
of reading. Within your limit of strength, be- 
gin new enterprises. No matter if you have 
only a year before you, or a day, begin ; make 
the most of the time you have left. If you need 
a new house and are able to build it, build it. 
Do not say, I am old and the old house will last 
as long as I. Rather say. My young soul de- 
serves a better abiding place, even if my old 
body does not. Build for the very joy of build- 
ing. Build as a demonstration to the world and 
to yourself that you are very much alive and 
intend to remain so, and that you defy every- 
thing in old age that would fossilize your soul. 

Lighten your cares and responsibilities, but 
keep such responsibilities as you have strength 
for. Thus your life will preserve its incentives, 
its dignity, and its meaning. Lighten your 
labor, but do not cease from labor. Remember 
that idleness means emptiness of mind, discon- 
tent and despondency, and therefore almost cer- 
tainly the shortening of one's days. 

Care for things beyond yourself. Dig wells 
in the desert for others to drink. Plant trees 
to give shade and fruit to others after you are 
gone. 

Do you have money? Remember that you 
cannot carry it beyond this world. Set it at 
work at once doing some good. Do not hoard 
it and cling to it, and only leave it at last for 

[98] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 

others to quarrel over. Dispose of it yourself, 
and dispose of it nobly. This will bring a new 
delight into your life. Give to yourself the 
great joy of making and carrying out plans for 
benefiting others, of seeing your money turn- 
ing into streams of blessing to the world. You 
will be amazed to find the power this will have 
to keep you young both in mind and body. 

Believe in progress. Be a forward looker. Relieve iti 
Believe in the coming generation. Believe that '^"^ jfuture 
after you, better men and women will come and 
take up the work which you lay down, and 
carry it on to results larger and better than you 
can understand. 

Keep alive your interest in what is going on 
in the great world. If you read fewer papers 
than once you did, read better ones. As much 
as you can, read books. Read the dear old 
books that you have loved in the past; and, 
among new books, read especially such as show 
the onward march of the race. These are the 
thoughts and things that will keep the Foun- 
tain of Youth open and flowing in your soul. 

Keep alive your interest in your neighbors 
and in society around you ; mingle with others ; 
cherish friendships. Let the fact that your old 
friends are growing fewer be a reason for priz- 
ing those that remain. And make new friends, 
especially among the young. 

Open your heart, as Jesus did his, to children, 

[99] 



RICH AND YOUNG 

%OVC tot especially to young children ; seek their society ; 

CbUDren J^t them know that you are their lover. And 

their answering love, their joy, their laughter 
and the sunshine of their faces will have a mar- 
vellous power to keep your soul youthful. 

Love is the most effective of all antidotes 
against old age. Forever are the words of Em- 
erson true: 

" Love wakes anew this trembling heart, 
And we are never old: 
Over the winter glaciers 

I see the summer glow, 
And through the well-piled snow drifts 
The warm rosebuds blow." 

Be sure to cherish and nourish love in every 
possible form. Keep all the fountains of affec- 
tion in your life open and flowing ; let none get 
clogged even for a day by indifference or care- 
lessness or selfishness. Love is life. It is the 
very highest kind of life: it is the life of God 
in the soul. Says the Apostle : "Every one that 
loveth is born of God." He is born into a life 
that cannot die and cannot grow old. 

The very humblest and simplest love is a road 
leading straight to Heaven. All the gates of 
the Celestial City fly open when Love rings her 
bells of gold. And best fact of all, the Heavens 
and Celestial Cities that Love leads to have not 
to be waited for until death is passed: they ask 

[100] 



YOUTH FOR ALL 



to be allowed to spring up for us on every side 
in this world, wherever we go and wherever we 
stay. 

Love nature; keep companionship with her. 
Love the sunshine ; live in the sunshine. Watch 
for the coming of the first spring flowers and 
the first spring robin. Never miss a beautiful 
sunset. Gaze often and long at the night stars, 
that their benediction and their peace may fall 
upon your spirit. Thus your soul may defy old 
age. 

Above all, believe that your life is divine, and 
that the world is divine. Learn how near God is. 

Believe that the stars shine with His light; 
that your pulse beats with His life; that your 
heart's love is a drop that has come to you from 
the great Infinite Loving Heart. Learn to say 
with Whitman : 

'' I see something of God each hour of the 

twenty-four and each moment; 
In the faces of men and women I see God; 

and in my own face in the glass ; 
I find letters from God dropped in the street, 

and every one is signed by God's name ; 
And I know that others will punctually come 

forever and forever." 

Can a soul able to say that, fear the swift 
flight of years? 

Believe that there is a Providence of Good 

[101] 



selfcve 

Xif e ie 
JS>ivinc 



Xove 



RICH AND YOUNG 

JSelfeve over you and over the world wise enough and 

in:Etetnal great enough to weave your weaknesses and 
shortcomings, and your old age, and your 
death, and the old age and death of your loved 
ones, into a splendid web-of-cloth-of-gold whose 
eternal meaning is Life and Love. 

Trim the lamp of your faith in immortality; 
pour abundant oil into it. How? By living 
nobly. The diviner your life, the more clearly 
you will see that it is God's life in you, and so 
the surer you will be that it cannot be extin- 
guished. 

Think of death not as an end but as a be- 
ginning; as a sleep and a waking; as a passing 
from one room to another of the Father's house. 
Sing with Whittier that 

*' Death is but a covered way 
Which opens into light." 

Ponder in your heart the great Scripture 
words: "Beloved, now are we children of God, 
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be." 
And these: "We know that if the earthly house 
of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a build- 
ing from God, a house not made with hands, 
eternal, in the heavens." 

The soul inspired by such a faith can know 
no old age, and no death. It has found the 
Fountain of Perpetual and Eternal Youth. 



[102] 



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